The Nuggets got some bad news prior to Wednesday’s game against the Rockets.

Not only was Aaron Gordon ruled out with right calf injury management an hour before Denver hosted Houston in a battle of top-four teams in the Western Conference, but Nikola Jokic joined him on the list of inactives.

Jokic was added to the injury report with right elbow inflammation. A league source told the Denver Gazette that Jokic injured the elbow in his shooting arm during his pregame routine. Wednesday’s contest was the sixth game Jokic missed this season. He missed three ahead of his second child’s birth and missed two more games with an illness last week. DeAndre Jordan started in Jokic’s place.

After missing a couple of weeks with a right calf strain, Gordon returned to Denver’s rotation as a reserve Sunday in Dallas. He played 18 minutes in both Sunday and Tuesday’s wins over the Mavericks but was not available on the second leg of Denver’s back-to-back Wednesday.

“The biggest challenge for him right now is just the frustration of not being able to go out there and play the minutes, the way he wants,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said pregame.

Denver’s busy stretch continues with Friday’s game in Miami.

“That’s three games in four nights in three different time zones, so we’ve got to be really smart about what we’re trying to do.”