It was a light rap that Nicolas Batum applied to the wood framing in his locker Saturday night, and for good measure, the Trail Blazers forward did it on three separate occasions, as if to ward off the evil spirits that had once permeated this room.

The topic at hand was the Trail Blazers and injuries. In the past five NBA seasons, only Golden State had players miss more games to injury than the Blazers. It was understandable why Batum took his knock-on-wood approach: a chunk of those 1,023 games missed by Blazers players were from Brandon Roy, who once dressed in the very stall Batum was rapping.

But on this night, the injury topic had a decidedly different tone. LaMarcus Aldridge (groin strain) and Meyers Leonard (ankle sprain) were healed, Leonard earlier than expected. They returned to help the Blazers beat Denver 102-96, continuing two of the NBA’s greatest turnarounds.

The Blazers (41-18) have the third best record in the Western Conference, thanks in large part to having one of the healthiest rosters in the league. According to Jeff Stotts of instreetclothes.com , the Blazers this season have missed the fourth fewest games because of injury in the NBA.

Maybe for once, the Blazers are enjoying good luck. Maybe there’s something to all the superstitious knocking on wood. These Blazers, though, believe something else is behind it all: science and Chris Stackpole.

“I don’t know how to explain it,’’ Batum said. “But it’s different. There has been a different approach.’’

Stackpole is the 26-year-old braniac the Blazers hired this summer to head a new division of their training staff: Player Health and Performance. He has a doctorate in physical therapy from Boston University and when the Blazers hired him, his mentors called him a rising star, and lauded the Blazers for being ahead of the curve.

He was hired to replace Jay Jensen, the team’s athletic trainer who was fired after 19 seasons, but in actuality, it wasn’t for the same job. Longtime assistant athletic trainer Geoff Clark has assumed Jensen’s prior duties, while Stackpole embarks on a new division of care for players that focuses heavily on preventative maintenance.

The Blazers do not allow Stackpole to speak with the media, but the players say he uses techniques they have never experienced.

“It’s interesting to see how they put things together and how they study our bodies,’’ CJ McCollum said. “It’s very technical.’’

The two biggest differences from last year to this year, players say, is each player is evaluated as an individual, not as part of a group, and more technology is used in the evaluations of their bodies.

In practice, they often wear heart monitors, which gauge not only their heart rate, but how much energy they have exerted. As the data is collected, Stackpole can determine which player is fatigued and needs a rest.

“I don’t think last year they did a bad job, but I think this year is more about body maintenance, and everything is done off how we feel,’’ Damian Lillard said. “So we aren’t coming into a day tired, where we will be lazy and have a better chance at injuring ourselves. Everything is kind of ... a lot more goes into what we do.’’

Sometimes, Lillard said, a player will be pulled from practice and told just to lift weights, or get a massage, because the data indicates their bodies have exterted a certain level of energy.

“It could be the amount of practice time, what we do in practice ... it’s going off how people feel,’’ Lillard said. “They always ask us: One-through-10 how sore are you? One-through-10 what type of mood are you in? Stuff like that. They make a read based off the information we give them, to know that maybe we shouldn’t practice, or he’s sore so he might have a chance at injuring himself. I think they definitely help us maintain our health.’’

The players are also filmed in how they jump, to determine how their knees are bending in while they leap. And each day, every player must respond to a questionnaire that asks everything from how they slept the night before, to how hydrated they are, to how sore they are.

“It has made us aware,’’ Joel Freeland said. “We are aware of our bodies all the time, which has made it easier for us to maintain. Whereas last year, it was different in that we were treated more as a group than individuals. They thought everyone is doing the same thing, so everyone is as tired as the other because we are all doing the same thing. But it’s not like that because everyone is different.’’

Said Aldridge: “It’s a lot different. They are trying to be a lot more proactive than they were in the past.’’

Heading into the All-Star break, the Blazers were the only team to have the same starting lineup for every game. That 53-game streak was the third longest streak to open a season, and the sixth longest in NBA history.

Two games before the All-Star break, Freeland sprained the MCL in his right knee when Batum accidentally fell into him. That was the first significant injury since McCollum broke his foot in training camp. Coming out of the break, Leonard stepped on teammate Wesley Matthews’ foot and sprained his ankle. And Aldridge decided the nagging pain in his groin needed a rest, ending the streak of consecutive games with the same starting lineup. Then Thomas Robinson injured his left knee while rising for a dunk last week and has missed the past two games.

But Aldridge returned Saturday after missing five games and had 16 points and seven rebounds in 30 minutes. Leonard also returned, ahead of the team’s two-to-three week prediction, and had eight points and five rebounds in 16 minutes.

Now Freeland and Robinson are under the watchful eyes of the Blazers’ health and performance staff. A key to their approach is not to focus on only the injured area, but the entire athlete, so the body doesn’t overcompensate and create another injury.

In the meantime, the Blazers’ success continues, in the standings and the training room, leaving us to wonder if it’s luck, superstition, or Stackpole?

“We have the same lineup 53 games in a row. I have been here six years with this team, and I have been in a lot of different injuries, so this has been a big year for me,’’ Batum said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it has to be something.’’