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Tag: michael malone

  • Nikola Jokic triple-double, Michael Porter Jr. 31-point game lead Nuggets to win over Knicks

    Nikola Jokic triple-double, Michael Porter Jr. 31-point game lead Nuggets to win over Knicks

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    After a successful week on the road, the defending NBA champions treated Ball Arena to a quintessential Denver Nuggets game.

    Michael Porter Jr. continued his hot streak with 31 points on 13-of-16 shooting, and Nikola Jokic amassed 30 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in a 113-100 win over the New York Knicks on Thursday night.

    Jamal Murray added 23 points before going to the locker room early with an apparent leg injury in the last minute of regulation, as Denver (49-21) was pulling away for its 13th win in 15 games since the All-Star break.

    “Just turned his ankle a little bit,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said, not seeming too concerned despite the prolonged amount of time Murray took to get up after an awkward landing.

    The Nuggets and Thunder are tied atop the Western Conference standings, though Oklahoma City possesses the edge in win percentage as well as the head-to-head tiebreaker.

    Porter is averaging 21 points per game since the break.

    When they visited Madison Square Garden at the end of a five-game January road trip, the Nuggets sleep-walked through their worst assist-to-turnover game (20 to 19) of the season. New York’s formidable defense stood tall, with OG Anunoby snatching six steals.

    “When you get your (butt) kicked,” Malone said pregame Thursday, “they have our full attention.”

    Except this time, the Knicks were wrapping up a four-game Western Conference trip, and Anunoby (among other key players) was out with an injury.

    Denver’s extraordinary starting five feasted. Jokic was one rebound shy of his 22nd triple-double of the season by halftime. Porter had a 6-for-6 shooting half, reminiscent of his recent perfect game in Los Angeles. Murray combined unlikely off-hand finishing with adventurous play-making. Aaron Gordon spun around defenders for a transition dunk. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope minimized Jalen Brunson as much as possible, keeping his 26 points to 23 shot attempts.

    “I just really, sincerely hope that the national media and everybody else following this great league really takes into account the great job he does every night,” Malone said. “We see it. I see it every day. … But he is an incredible defensive player You don’t stop a guy like Jalen Brunson. He had two 40-point games on this road trip. But I thought he made him work for everything tonight.”

    In a particularly breathtaking third-quarter sequence, Gordon initiated a set from the left wing by passing to Jokic, who was stepping up toward the top of the key. He thrives when he can operate from the middle of the floor with his back to the basket. From the right wing, Porter motioned to his right to push his defender (Donte DiVincenzo) back a step, to the same level as Jokic — basically creating a screen for himself. Porter slid back to the left, received a dribble handoff as DiVincenzo went underneath Jokic, and shot-faked as DiVincenzo left his feet to contest. Gordon’s man, Josh Hart, was stuck in no man’s land as Gordon slipped to the basket. Porter passed to him, and Gordon kicked to Caldwell-Pope in the corner as Brunson collapsed. Two extra passes, three points.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Why Nuggets want Reggie Jackson to stay aggressive during slump: “This team is mad at you if you don’t shoot”

    Why Nuggets want Reggie Jackson to stay aggressive during slump: “This team is mad at you if you don’t shoot”

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    MIAMI — The backcourt that shepherded Denver to consecutive road wins in Miami during last year’s NBA Finals was waiting to check back into the game, waiting to send Heat fans marching toward the exits once again. Clutch time is when the Nuggets’ starters thrive.

    But these two starters decided they’d rather let the backup backcourt do the honors.

    After a barrage of Reggie Jackson jumpers, Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went to coach Michael Malone and told him to keep Jackson and Christian Braun in the game. Malone obliged, and the Nuggets kept pulling away for a 100-88 win that they hope will be important for reasons that transcend their temporary, solitary claim to first place in the West.

    Jackson needed a new dose of confidence.

    “I’ve been in a crazy slump,” he said.

    Earlier in the fourth quarter, Braun scored seven critical points during Nikola Jokic’s rest minutes to protect a slim lead. Then Jackson took over, scoring from 17, 15 and 26 feet on three consecutive possessions in a span of 1:12 to double Denver’s lead and force an Erik Spoelstra timeout.

    “I had Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the scorer’s table during that stretch. And this speaks a lot about our group,” Malone said. “Both those guys said to me, ‘Coach, let Reggie ride. Let CB ride. This group is playing well.’ And part of our culture — because we do have a culture in Denver as well — part of our culture is being selfless. Getting over yourself. And I think that’s another example of how our team is always getting over the individual, thinking about the collective. Really happy for Reggie Jackson.”

    Malone was not-so-subtly throwing shade at Miami’s “Heat Culture” mantra in his postgame comments, but his proud advocacy for Nuggets Culture was validated by the team’s reaction to Jackson’s heat check.

    “You could see it transpire on the court. That was the cool part,” Jackson told The Denver Post. “I’ve been playing long enough. You see a lot of things the older you get. You witness it. I knew my minutes were kind of up. I knew Jamal was supposed to come on the court. … And then I see Jamal motioning to Coach, like, ‘Keep him in. Let him play.’ I saw Pope doing the same thing for C.B. So that was a really cool moment for C.B. and myself.”

    For Jackson in particular, the vote of confidence was revitalizing. In the first 30 games of the season, he averaged 13.2 points on 48.6% shooting, including 38.1% from 3-point range. He led the Nuggets to a handful of wins in November when Murray was out with a strained hamstring. In the next 35 games entering this matchup, Jackson shot 38.7% from the floor and 30.9% from outside, averaging only 7.4 points and scoring in double figures only 10 times.

    After the win in Miami, he has still gone a season-long 10 consecutive games without touching double digits, but seven of his nine points Wednesday were scored during the game-clinching burst.

    He says his teammates have been urging him to take those shots despite the drop in efficiency.

    “They want me to continue to be myself. Continue to be aggressive. They’ve been kind of upset at me for not playing my game the last few,” Jackson said. “So then I started playing aggressive. Even still in the midst of missing shots. I think I had a 1-for-9 night. I had like a 1-for-7. But just hearing the encouragement from my teammates … once you have a great group like that — front office, coaches, teammates — believing in you like that, you can’t do anything but start believing in yourself again. So like I said: Hit a slump. Had some dark days. Tough days. But having that encouragement has made it easier to come out here and keep attacking, keep pushing ahead and just live with the results.”

    Jackson’s defining quality is his one-on-one scoring capability. There have been flashes in recent games when he puts the moves on an opposing guard but simply misses the shot he generates.

    “That’s the annoying part,” he said. “I think the reassuring part is that I can still get to a spot and get to a shot. So that’s always the best part. I think once I’m not able to get to a shot, that would be a little worrisome. That’s probably when you’ve gotta hang it up. … Just knowing I can still get there. And now it’s on me to go ahead and continue to get in the gym and find a way to complete the play. So that’s really what I’ve been trying to focus on. Footwork. Having my confidence down, and just continuing to trust in the reps, trust in the work.”

    Jackson’s rotations have changed recently. He’s not sharing the floor with Murray much anymore, after a stretch of games in which Malone tried a variation of the second unit that deployed both point guards at the same time. Instead, Justin Holiday is filling the extra backcourt spot in that lineup; Jackson is subbing back in with Jokic to give Murray a brief rest. That’s why Jackson was on the floor as a competitive NBA Finals rematch entered the last five minutes.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Nuggets dominate clutch minutes again to spoil Lakers’ celebration of LeBron James scoring milestone

    Nuggets dominate clutch minutes again to spoil Lakers’ celebration of LeBron James scoring milestone

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    LOS ANGELES — The clutch-time Nuggets spoiled another landmark night for the Lakers.

    On the night LeBron James became the first player to ever score 40,000 career points, Denver came back from an 11-point deficit for a 124-114 win, the team’s sixth consecutive since the All-Star break, on Saturday night.

    Nikola Jokic went for 35 points and 10 rebounds. Michael Porter Jr. added an immaculate 25 without missing a single shot. He was 10 for 10 in the game, including 5 for 5 from beyond the arc.

    The Nuggets (42-19) have won eight consecutive games over the Lakers.

    They entered the fourth quarter of this one tied at 89 and needing a key stretch from the second unit. It mostly delivered, until the very end of Jokic’s rest minutes. Peyton Watson supplied four points and an emphatic block as the Nuggets took a five-point lead, but James nullified the block by absorbing contact with Zeke Nnaji for an and-one. He missed the free throw that would’ve tied the game, but a Denver turnover seconds later led to a go-ahead James three. Timeout Michael Malone, down two.

    Enter Jokic. Cue clutch finish for Nuggets starters.

    They trailed 108-105 as clutch time officially began in the last five minutes. Justin Holiday sank a 3-pointer while playing for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, out for personal reasons. Aaron Gordon finally cashed in on an open corner three for the lead. Then Jokic and Jamal Murray took over again. The game ended on a 19-6 run.

    Public and media anticipation surrounding the final meeting of the regular season between these teams wasn’t particularly concerned with the matchup or its implications. Denver was going into a building sold out by box score watchers experiencing LeBron Fever. He entered the game an inevitable nine points away from the never-achieved milestone, and for the first quarter and change, that was the primary focus every time he had the ball. Malone was effusive in his praise of James while fielding a handful of questions about him pregame, but in terms of the moment itself, the ninth-year Nuggets coach was definitive.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Keeler: Nuggets star Jamal Murray could ruin LeBron James’ record-setting night. But is that worth risking Murray’s bad ankle?

    Keeler: Nuggets star Jamal Murray could ruin LeBron James’ record-setting night. But is that worth risking Murray’s bad ankle?

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    Michael Adams’ heart did a one-handed push shot right past his chest, then sank straight into his hands.

    There he was, baseline royalty, right under the basket. First time back at Ball Arena in about six years, and Jamal Murray lands like a dead fish three feet in front of him, rolling on the floor.

    Suddenly, in a cruel twist of irony and a crueler twist of an ankle, one of the greatest shooters in Nuggets history had a front-row seat to watch the Blue Arrow, his spiritual successor, writhe in agony.

    “I just heard him say, ‘Oh my God,’” Adams, the Nuggets’ 3-point ace from 1987-91, said of the Blue Arrow’s sprain just before halftime, the one that cast a pall over the Nuggets’ scrappy 103-97 victory over the Miami Heat in an NBA Finals rematch.

    “So when (Murray) grabbed his ankle, I was like, ‘OK, it’s his ankle … it wasn’t his knee.’”

    Join the club, brother.

    I know what you’re thinking: Man, the Lakers are next. Is there a better, sweeter feeling for Nuggets faithful than watching Murray prop his feet up on the couch in The House Kobe Built and drop daggers all over Tinseltown? Especially on LeBron’s big night? Over his last six regular-season appearances against the Lake Show, the Blue Arrow’s averaged 23.5 points, 6.3 assists and 3.2 treys.

    But by the same token, did you see the anguish on the guy’s face as he staggered off the baseline and limped to the locker room? Why push your luck? Especially when that luck is as fickle as Jamal’s?

    “Injuries happen,” Adams told me, “but in this situation, you want the Nuggets to be healthy toward the end of the season … if he’s not ready to go, they’ll sit him down and let him get healthy. They’ve still got some time (to finish) the season with him on the floor.”

    This ain’t about want-to. Or toughness. Murray was raised like a basketball ninja in chilly Ontario, a childhood montage that included push-ups in the snow and balancing cups of hot tea on his thigh during squats. The Arrow would sooner swim through shark-infested waters wearing a chum suit than accept defeat.

    Still, if I’m Nuggets coach Michael Malone, I’m overriding Murray’s inner Bruce Lee and reaching for the bubble wrap.

    The NBA Playoffs, the land of bright lights, big stages and swollen egos where No. 27 reigns supreme, is seven weeks away yet. The No. 1 seed in the West is a heck of a target, yes, and the Nuggets went into Friday trailing the Wolves by a game-and-a-half.

    Everything’s on the table now. Including disaster. And you sure as heck don’t get a parade in June by redlining Murray in early March.

    “When Jamal realizes, ‘Hey, man, we’ve got 23 games to go, this (ankle) is not feeling great right now,’ I think it’s great for him to realize being cautious right now is probably the really prudent decision,” Malone said late Thursday night. “And that shows also (his) maturity. He’s growing and realizing that we (need him long-term) …

    “(People insist), ‘You should be the No. 1 seed.’ Yeah, that’d be great. I want to be healthy. Because I know if we’re healthy, that we can beat anybody, anywhere.”

    Dang straight.

    Murray ended the first quarter Thursday by draining a 3-pointer at the buzzer with four Miami hands in his face. He ended the second in the bowels of Ball Arena, getting treatment on a right ankle that got rolled during an accidental collision with teammate Aaron Gordon.

    The tumble happened, as kismet would have it, right in front of Adams, now 61 and working with the Washington Wizards, and his son.

    “I actually wanted to bring my All-Star ring here to let him hold onto it until he actually made one,” said Adams, who represented Washington at the NBA’s mid-winter classic back in 1992. “And to (tell Murray), ‘You deserve to be on an All-Star team.’ I didn’t do it. But I wanted to.”

    In his salad days, Adams was Steph Curry before Steph, 5-foot-10 with a funky release, cold-blooded to the core, a shooter ahead of his time. Especially once ex-Nuggets coach Doug Moe gave him the green light.

    “I’m a big fan of Murray — obviously, him and Nikola (Jokic) are just out-of-this-world players,” said Adams, who averaged 18.2 points and 7.2 dimes over four seasons with Denver. “I love watching him play. I was just telling my son, ‘If I was backing up Jamal Murray, and he just went out of the game, I’d be happy to be on the floor with the rest of those guys right now.’”

    He’d be happier still to see Murray rest that ankle until the Arrow’s closer to 100%. And like Malone, he’d rather have the Nuggets healthy come mid-April than exhaust their stars in a seeding chase.

    “You want (those starters) on the floor, but health is No. 1,” Adams said. “I think the Nuggets can beat anybody on the road (in the playoffs) if they had to.”

    Nine solid weeks of Murray in the spring is worth its weight in gold. At least 29 pounds of it, last we checked.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Nikola Jokic on his defense after 4 steals vs. Warriors: “I think I’m not bad, not good. I’m in the middle.”

    Nikola Jokic on his defense after 4 steals vs. Warriors: “I think I’m not bad, not good. I’m in the middle.”

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    SAN FRANCISCO — The cartoonish Defensive Player of the Game chain is objectively the Nuggets’ corniest tradition, a blinged-up symbol of morale and affirmation usually reserved for college football sidelines rather than NBA locker rooms. If it seems one is too many, brace for impact.

    “We only travel with one. We’ve gotta change that,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after a 119-103 win over the Warriors on Sunday. “Because if we had two chains, Nikola would have gotten the other one.”

    The lone chain couldn’t belong to anyone else but Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for his dogged efforts in trying to out-cardio Steph Curry in the half-court. But in Nikola Jokic’s trio of videogame performances since the All-Star break, his defense has stood up respectably next to his offense. He’s averaging 27.3 points, 16.7 rebounds and 15 assists on 68.7% shooting … plus three “stocks,” a combination of blocks and steals.

    When he’s on the floor this season, the Nuggets are allowing 112.1 points per 100 possessions, 1.3 below their overall total as a team.

    As a crowded MVP race heats up with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic, Jokic’s four steals against Golden State were a testament to the trickiness in evaluating his defense. He’s not always noticeably impactful — the No. 1 argument skeptics make against his annual candidacy is that he’s a liability, even — but when he’s engaged in the game plan and actively anticipating an opponent’s next move the way he does on offense, he can be a master of his role in Denver’s defensive system.

    “I think I’m not bad, not good,” Jokic said Sunday at Chase Center. “I’m in the middle.”

    By the same token that Jokic doesn’t dunk the basketball often, he rarely swats shots or plays above the rim defensively. Instead, the Nuggets maximize their center’s strengths by having him guard higher up against ball screens than most big men in the NBA, subsequently leaning heavily on weak-side help from Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. to contain rollers. When Jokic can play from the middle of the floor, his vision and IQ work in sync with his quick hands.

    “The more he’s up in pick-and-rolls and on the ball … that’s what he’s great at,” Caldwell-Pope said recently. “Just being up. Active hands. Getting deflections when they try to make that pocket pass.”

    Jokic amassed five deflections to go with his four steals in Denver’s seventh consecutive win against the Warriors. As of the 56-game mark, he was tied for eighth in the league with 2.9 per game (as many as the absurdly wingspanned Victor Wembanyama). “That speaks to activity, that speaks to a physicality, that speaks to being in that right place in the right time,” said Malone. Disrupting the pocket pass is a facet of Jokic’s innate understanding of pick-and-roll angles, the same understanding that makes his two-man game with Jamal Murray so brilliant at the other end of the floor.

    It’s not Murray he’s generally teaming up with to defend the pick-and-roll, though. It’s Caldwell-Pope, who’s regularly charged with premier backcourt matchups. The experienced Caldwell-Pope is one of the best guards in the league at navigating screens. But the Nuggets have minimal off-day practice time during the season to refine two-man defensive chemistry, and Jokic and Caldwell-Pope haven’t been playing their entire careers together. So, says Caldwell-Pope, it’s a matter of “learn on the go.”

    “I feel like with Jok, in a pick-and-roll with him defensively, I know he’s gonna be up,” he said. “I know he has great hands, just like I have great hands. He’s gonna try to go for the steal as well. So just us two, being in that action, it helps me out a lot. It helps him just to get back to his man and helps me stay as close as possible to my man. That’s our game plan, him being up. And it’s good for our team, for him to be up.”

    Caldwell-Pope added that his individual emphasis, to hound the ball-handler through the screen while Jokic also stays up, is made easier by Jokic dropping marginally behind him and being able to see other aspects of the play unfolding. “He reads plays faster than I can sometimes,” the former Laker said.

    “That’s him, to be honest,” Jokic retorted of his chemistry with Caldwell-Pope. “I’m just there to not mess up. He’s a really good defender, and I’m there to just, try to help him a little bit. As much as I can. But it’s mostly him.”

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Michael Porter Jr. scores season-high 34 as Nuggets cruise past Trail Blazers

    Michael Porter Jr. scores season-high 34 as Nuggets cruise past Trail Blazers

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — Written on the locker room whiteboard Thursday night at Ball Arena was a summons for players to get to the Denver airport by 10:20 p.m. for their team flight to Oregon. It was an unrealistic goal, especially considering Nikola Jokic’s typically methodical postgame process and media obligation.

    So maybe the Nuggets were a little late to take off. They made it to Portland just fine.

    And after a slightly slow start at Moda Center the next night, the defending champions took off and earned a 127-112 win over the Blazers, sweeping a back-to-back out of the All-Star break. Michael Malone called a timeout after three early turnovers yielded an 8-3 deficit. Then Denver cruised.

    The Nuggets (38-19) gave Jamal Murray the night off to avoid straining him in the back-to-back after he went into the break dealing with shin splints. His absence was more for precautionary reasons after an encouraging performance against the Wizards and before a marquee matchup Sunday at the Warriors. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, on the other hand, played after missing the second half of Thursday’s game with a sprained finger.

    Without Murray, Nikola Jokic posted a triple-double by the end of the third quarter for the second time in 24 hours, and Michael Porter Jr. scored a season-high 34 points on 21 shots to go with a dozen rebounds.

    “I was just getting easy shots. My teammates were finding me in transition,” Porter said. “When a player like ‘Mal is out, a lot of guys have gotta step up.”

    “Michael is such a big target, and (defenders) play on the high side, so they’re trying to make him a 2-point scorer,” Malone said. “And he’s shown that he can do that just as efficiently (as scoring from three). This was a night when Michael played at a high level throughout the course of the game.”

    Jokic finished the night with 29 points, 15 boards and 14 assists on 12-of-17 shooting. With 2:37 remaining in the first half, he missed his first shot in 15 attempts since the break. Aaron Gordon also supplied another efficient and well-rounded game, going for eight points on 4-of-5 shooting (all in the first half) and seven assists.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Is Christian Braun The Denver Nuggets’ Latest NBA Draft Steal?

    Is Christian Braun The Denver Nuggets’ Latest NBA Draft Steal?

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    At first glance on the basketball court, there may not seem to be a whole lot in common between Denver Nuggets rookie Christian Braun, a defensive wing known for his toughness, athleticism and hustle, and his second-year teammate Bones Hyland, a long-range sharpshooting guard who’s a hooper to the core.

    But one trait which it’s looking increasingly likely that they share is that both may ultimately prove to have a substantially higher on-court value in their NBA careers than the late first round position of the draft picks they were chosen with might suggest.

    Simply put, the Nuggets may have landed themselves significant draft steals in two consecutive years.

    Hyland was selected with the 26th pick in the 2021 NBA Draft after an impressive two-year run with the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams, and upon joining the Nuggets, wasted little time in quickly becoming a beloved fan favorite with both his infectious personality and the positive on-court impact he created for Denver as a rookie, especially flourishing after taking over backup point guard duties midway through the season.

    Braun, drafted with the 21st pick in June, and now just three games into his professional NBA career, is already making a significant mark for Denver, particularly on the defensive end, and has done so sooner than many expected even considering the championship pedigree he earned earlier this year with the Kansas University Jayhawks.

    Before being drafted, both players were projected by most prominent draft analysts to be picked in the late-first or early-second round, and both were indeed eventually selected in the 20s, near the upper end of that range. But certainly in the case of Hyland (with a much larger sample of games at this point), there’s a strong case to be made that he in actuality is at minimum a late-lottery caliber talent who merited (but did not receive) on of those coveted NBA draft green room invitations.

    And early as it is, now Braun as well is showing signs that he might have more fittingly been drafted higher than he actually was.

    During last year’s preseason, when Bones Hyland first started showing for the Nuggets the flashes of his upside that he would later more fully demonstrate in higher-leverage situations, I wrote for Forbes that he looked like he just might be one of the big steals of the 2021 draft.

    And based on the results from a collection of mock 2021 “redrafts” in which draft analysts go through the process of re-selecting the class in the order they “should have” been chosen in retrospect, Hyland has indeed performed at a level where he’s now esteemed as a significantly higher quality player than the 26th pick he was actually taken with.

    As the chart above shows, and average of five different 2021 redrafts lands Hyland on the cusp of lottery pick territory, just over 11 spots above his true draft position. This puts him squarely in “draft steal” territory, a status well-earned by his commendable play as a rookie which earned him a larger role this season.

    And while it’s far too soon to do a similar re-draft exercise with the 2022 class, the nascent indications of the direction Braun’s developmental track is heading are nearly all pointing up in meaningful ways, and his level of NBA-readiness seems to be off the charts, even if a few youthful mistakes show up here and there.

    “Christian Braun is a rookie who is growing up pretty quickly in this league,” head coach Michael Malone said after Denver’s recent home-opening win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. “It’s great to see him step in and shoot those shots with confidence.”

    Those shots Malone refers to were a trio of three-pointers in Braun’s second-half stint against OKC, the first of which was his first made three in the NBA, but all of which were critical in helping the Nuggets stay afloat in what ended up being an uncomfortably close game.

    “They made good passes, and [OKC] played off of me,” Braun said after the game. “Jok [Nikola Jokic] had skips to the corner. When Jok hits you with them skip passes, you have to shoot them.”

    Malone expanded on how he had urged Braun to keep shooting: “When he came out, I said, ‘listen, make or miss, you have to take that shot because it’s a good shot and you work your ass off every day.’”

    “And tonight, he stepped in with great confidence and that was fun to watch,” Malone added.

    In addition to the value of Braun hitting his shots, something which will only help to solidify his place in Denver’s rotation, he has perhaps just as importantly very quickly begun earning the trust of back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokic, which is critically essential for any player he shares the court with, as well as Malone and seasoned veterans like Jeff Green.

    A huge part of gaining that trust from his teammates and coaches is just how smart, fundamentally sound, and within-the-flow Braun has proven to play nearly from moment one.

    In the sequences below, for example, there are about 20 things he just “does right” as these plays unfold, from consistently feeding the ball to Jokic in the post, to getting straight to his (correct) spots on the floor, to denying the ball to his defensive assignment at the perimeter, to monitoring the passing lanes for the steal, to selflessly passing up worse shots to create better ones for his teammates, and much more, all in the span of about two minutes of playing time.

    Although both Malone and Jokic have reputations (whether fairly earned or not) for having confidence issues with younger, less-experienced players, it surely seems they have both already opened the door to let Braun into their circle of trust.

    In Malone’s case, this is in no small part because of Braun’s relentless effort, hustle and (importantly) effectiveness on the defensive end of the court, which was on full display in Denver’s hard-earned road win at the defending champion Golden State Warriors.

    The fact that Malone entrusted Braun with guarding not only microwave scorer (and sometimes Nuggets-killer) Jordan Poole, but also two of the greatest shooters in NBA history in Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, speaks volumes about just how much faith he has in the rookie.

    Last season, from January 28 onward when he took over the role as the Nuggets’ full-time backup point guard, Hyland averaged 11.9 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists with 2.1 made three-pointers on a .392 percentage from deep on his way to being named to the NBA All-Rookie second team.

    Because so much of Braun’s impact and effectiveness on the court shows up more in the eye test than on the stat sheet, it’s hard to know at this early stage whether he will get the same kind of recognition as Hyland even if he qualitatively has just as good of a rookie season.

    But one of my 2022-23 Nuggets predictions was that Braun would pass fellow wing Davon Reed in Denver’s rotation by the All-Star break, and judging by their minutes totals so far (41 and 19, respectively), he’s already ahead of schedule in cementing a regular spot. And assuming that continues, which is reasonable based on just how well he’s started his young NBA career, Braun should have every opportunity to prove that he, like Bones, was yet another Denver Nuggets draft steal.

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    Joel Rush, Contributor

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