Former Kansas guard Christian Braun of NBA’s Nuggets suffers rare postseason defeat

Christian Braun’s bid to become the second player in NBA history to win an NCAA title followed immediately by back-to-back NBA crowns ended on Sunday night when his Denver Nuggets fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves 98-90 in Game 7 of a second-round Western Conference playoff series in Denver.

“This feeling is not something you want to feel. I haven’t felt this feeling in a while,” said Braun, a second-year pro who started on Kansas’ 2022 NCAA title team then played a key, reserve role on the Nuggets’ 2023 NBA championship squad.

Braun — he closed his high school career at Blue Valley Northwest by winning Class 6A state titles as a sophomore, junior and senior — until Sunday hadn’t felt the agony of defeat in the postseason for quite a long while.

“I don’t ever want this feeling again. We’re going to work all summer so we don’t have to feel that,” added Braun, a 6-foot-6, 200-pound, 23-year old guard, who came off the Nuggets bench to score five points with three assists, three rebounds and a block in 20 minutes Sunday night.

Braun met with reporters in front of his locker Sunday after suffering his first loss in six NBA playoff series.

The Nuggets went 4-0 during the 2022-23 postseason, rolling over the Timberwolves (4-1), Phoenix Suns (4-2), Los Angeles Lakers (4-0) and Miami Heat (4-1). This postseason, the Nuggets knocked off the Lakers 4-1 in Round 1 before falling to Minnesota 4-3.

By prevailing last year he joined Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Henry Bibby and Billy Thompson as the only players throughout history to win an NCAA title then an NBA crown as a rookie. By losing Sunday he was prevented from joining Thompson (Louisville, 1987; Lakers 1988, ‘89) as the only players to win a title their final year of college then back-to-back championships their first two years of an NBA career. Denver of course would have had to win two additional series to take the 2024 title.

“It (stinks), but I think we’re the better team,” Braun said. “They beat us. They beat us fair and square. But I’d say we had such a good opportunity to go back-to-back. You don’t get that opportunity very often. It hurts, but this is what we need, to feel it.”

Minnesota, which will meet Dallas in the conference finals, on Sunday became the first team in NBA history to overcome a 15-point halftime deficit in a Game 7 of a playoff series. The Nuggets led by 20 in the third quarter.

“It’s inexcusable to lose a game when you are up 15 at half,” Braun said. “We put ourselves in probably the best position we could have been in. They did a really good job responding. They’ve got really good players. They’ve got really tough guys. They are a really good team on defense. It’s not like we lost to a bad team. I felt in my heart we were a better team. We got beat. That happens. We’ve got to respond in the right way.”

Some analysts have said it appeared the Nuggets ran out of gas after last year’s title run, which went into June.

“You can blame whatever you want to blame … guys are tired from last year, whatever it is to blame,” said Braun, who in year two in the league averaged 7.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game. He averaged 20.2 minutes per game off the bench in 82 games (four starts).

“I felt we had the best team in the NBA,” Braun added. “I’m proud of these guys. We fought. We lost but these guys are up for the challenge. They’ll respond.”

Braun said after taking some time off he’ll be ready to work hard on his own game this offseason.

“There’s a lot of things I want to improve. We’ll have a little more time this offseason to spend on those things,” he told reporters. “It’s not what I wanted but it’s the reality of it.

“I’ll be back,” he added.