Nikola Jokic believes Denver Nuggets rookie Christian Braun won the team Game 3 of the NBA Finals - and told his teammate exactly that following their 109-94 win over the Miami Heat.
Denver led by as many as 21 points early in the fourth quarter, but it was a much closer contest during the first half. Braun, 22, made a mark on the game after being introduced off the bench by Nuggets head coach Michael Malone.
As the only rookie receiving game time in the NBA Playoffs, the number 21 overall pick is excelling on the biggest stage in basketball. Braun scored 15 points on an efficient shooting night (7-of-8 from the field) and pulled down four rebounds.
Comparatively, Leicester-born Serbia international Nikola Jovic, whom Miami selected six places later than the former Kansas Jayhawks star, has played a combined 13 minutes in the postseason for the Heat. Fellow Serb Jokic made clear how important Braun was to the man himself after Game Three.
“I told him: ‘You won us the game,’” the two-time MVP explained. “He’s a winner, and he won us the game with the energy, just the focus, the mindset.
"Even when he makes a mistake, he makes an aggressive mistake, so you can’t be mad at him; I always say that. So he won us the game, and he was really good tonight.”
Jokic continued: “I always talk about him as a winner. He’s making winning plays. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing aggressive. I think he has a future in this league.” Coach Malone was equally full of praise for Braun.
"When you win three straight High School State Championships, when you win a National Championship in which he never came out of the game, played all 40 minutes, and he's very confident, and he should be," Malone said.
"We believed in him, we drafted him, and he's everything we hoped for and more. But that confidence is something that his mother, his father, his family that I think he's had it from a very early age."
After the game, Braun deflected praise onto the organisation for allowing him to flourish. "Those guys trust me. So I can't really fail if I go out there and play hard. They don't expect much from me.
"As far as the offensive end, they just expect me to go out there and give effort on defence, rebound, whatever it is. Try to get extra possession for those guys to score.
"So they trust me, and they put me in the right spots. And all I got to do is lay a ball in and then get a steal. So my job is pretty easy, and those guys made me look pretty good."
What does look pretty good is Denver reclaiming home-court advantage thanks to their rookie guard, who is quickly turning into one of the steals of the 2023 draft.
