At 0-2, the Nuggets are one of four winless teams going into Monday night’s games, but there were no traces of frustration in Monday’s practice.

“Practice was good, it was really good,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “The guys were spirited today, came out with good effort. Wilson (Chandler) and (Danilo Gallinari) and Anthony (Randolph) were out, but everybody else was involved with practice and they really competed with one another. That’s the kind of spirit you want to see.”

Randolph is dealing with a sprained ankle. Jordan Hamilton will start in his place at small forward on Tuesday against San Antonio. Shaw also made the decision to get Kenneth Faried back into the starting lineup at power forward.

The intent is to get energy back on the court from the start, and the Nuggets will need it as they face the San Antonio Spurs, last year’s Western Conference champions. The Spurs are 2-1.

The Nuggets played San Antonio in the preseason, but the Spurs didn’t even bring their star trio of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan. Things will be very different this time around.

“They’re a team that any mistake that you make, they will make you pay for it,” Shaw said. “In terms of execution, they can play any style, they can get up and down they can in the half court. They’re good defensively. It’s going to be a good test for us.

“Some guys were saying it’s not a situation you want to go into when you’re 0-2 to try to get your first win of the season, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’ll be a good challenge for us. Energy-wise, we understand we have to come out with better energy than we did in the Portland game. We’re going to have to perfect all of the little things if we want to accomplish great things.”

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