‘No excuses’: Christian Braun’s Nuggets eliminated in semis for 2nd straight year
After winning an NBA title his first year in the league, Christian Braun’s Denver Nuggets have failed to reach the Western Conference finals in his second and third seasons as a pro basketball player.
So how close are the Nuggets to reclaiming championship status?
That’s the question the 24-year-old former University of Kansas guard faced during his postgame interview session with the media after Denver’s 125-93 setback to Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the second-round series Sunday in OKC.
“We lost in Game 7 in the second round. So that’s not close enough,” said Braun. He scored 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting (2-of-9 from 3) with four rebounds, three assists and two turnovers while starting and playing 33 minutes in the elimination game.
“I think the same thing happened last year,” he added of a Game 7 second-round defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver to conclude the 2023-24 postseason.
“No excuses about what happened or it could have been this, could have been that. We lost. They were a better team and that’s how it was.”
Nuggets starting forward Aaron Gordon, who suffered a hamstring injury in a Game 6 victory Thursday in Denver, finished with eight points and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes. Starting point guard Jamal Murray, who has been battling an illness, had 13 points on 6-of-16 shooting in 35 minutes.
Also, starting forward Michael Porter Jr., the former Mizzou player who has been battling a shoulder injury of late, managed six points and three rebounds in 23 minutes.
“Everybody has stuff (this time of year). There’s no excuses. We can’t sit here and say we had injuries or people were sick,” said Braun, who faced a tough defensive assignment in OKC’s MVP candidate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
“SGA” had 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting in 36 minutes. Meanwhile, Denver’s superstar, Nikola Jokic, had 20 points and nine rebounds in 37 minutes.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Braun said. “You’re not going to look at it as that. We’re not going to make excuses about anything. We didn’t get the job done.”
Braun, who averaged 15.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists during his first season as a starter after averaging 7.3/3.7/1.6 in 2023-24, had a stellar postseason.
He scored 23 points with 11 rebounds during Denver’s Game 6 win over OKC. He had 17 points in a Game 4 loss. In the first round series against the Los Angeles Clippers, which Denver won 4-3, Braun had 21 points, five rebounds and four assists in a Game 7 victory in Denver.
Overall, in 14 games he averaged 12.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.2 steals a game. He hit 44.8% of his shots while logging 39.2 minutes per game.
“I’m proud of everybody as individuals. We fought through a lot. We went through a lot,” said Braun, a starter on KU’s 2022 NCAA title team who also won three state titles at Blue Valley Northwest High School.
The Nuggets management fired their head coach and general manager in April with the team responding well to the coaching of interim David Adelman.
“I think their toughness, their grit was was impressive,” Braun added of his teammates, “but we didn’t get the job done. The outcome wasn’t what we wanted. On this type of team, (it’s) championship or nothing. And, you know, I really believe that. So, like I said, I think everybody fought through a ton, and everybody was really tough, and we had some really cool wins, some really cool moments this year, but it wasn’t enough, and the outcome wasn’t what we wanted.”
As far as Braun’s future in the league, he is about to begin the final year of a four-year contract that paid him $3,089,640 this past season. The Nuggets will pay him $4,921,797 in 2025-26 while perhaps working on a new deal this upcoming offseason.
One report says Denver could offer Braun as much as $94 million over four years starting in 2026-27.
Braun has become known in the NBA for his defense as much as his offense. He guarded James Harden, the Clippers’ most explosive scorer, during the first-round series and Gilgeous-Alexander in round two. He said he will return to training camp an improved player.
“We’ve got to learn learn from it, and we’ve got to come back better. I know I will, and I know we will as a team,” Braun said of the Jokic-led Nuggets. “I learned some things over the course of this series.
“I think I kind of got better and better as we went. The guys trusted me. The coaches trusted me. But we didn’t win the championship and that was our goal. We came up short.”
This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 10:14 AM with the headline "‘No excuses’: Christian Braun’s Nuggets eliminated in semis for 2nd straight year."
