It was supposed to be a lengthy absence, yes. JaVale McGee always knew that.

But this long?

McGee went down early last season with astress fracture in his left tibia. First, he opted for rest to see if it would heal on its own. When that didn’t work out, he underwent surgery. It was expected he might get back for a few games at the end of last season.

Many months later, the 7-foot McGee practiced Monday with the expectation of being back on the court this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday when the Nuggets play Portland at the Coors Event Center. If he doesn’t play Tuesday, he’ll likely play Friday at Golden State.

“I thought it was going to be 6-8 weeks, not 6-8 months,” McGee said.

The wait over, McGee is working to get ready for the regular season, which begins next week.

“I’m excited, really excited,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I played in a real game.”

He’s now gone through a couple of full practices for the first time all month and is reporting little pain afterward. Coach Brian Shaw will limit his minutes, at least initially.

“It’s probably a seven-minute stint, just being out there, just getting that game conditioning,” McGee said. “You can do this (practicing) all you want, but game running is totally different from running in here.”

Perhaps giving McGee a bit of a boost to get back on the court faster has been the play of Nuggets first-round draft pick Jusuf Nurkic. The 20-year old ranks among the league leaders in rebounding during the exhibition season.

“He is very eager to get out there because he sees the Bosnian Bear is on the prowl,” Shaw said, grinning. “That’s one of the good things about having the depth that we have. It makes for that competition in practice, and guys don’t want to lose their slot. So he’s eager to get back to kind of slow that Bear down himself.”

Footnotes. Point guard Ty Lawson will not play Tuesday due to a hamstring strain. “Those muscle injuries are something that you don’t want to linger on, and they can linger,” Shaw said. “For a guy that depends on speed as much as he does, I want him to be good to go the first game of the season. So, however long we have to take with him to make sure that he’s right, we’re going to do that.”

Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dempseypost