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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.”
