DENVER (AP) — Denver Nuggets rookie Christian Brown shows the NBA Finals aren’t too big for him.
The 21st pick in the draft last summer, the Browns made the most of his minutes off the bench, hitting 10 of 12 shots, grabbing a half-dozen rebounds and picking up four steals against the Miami Heat while giving his teammates an extended break.
“This is a rare rookie here,” said Aaron Gordon. “From day one he’s been on top of it. This is a real winner here. I say that because he’s always in the right place. He’s in the right place at the right time, and he’s been doing it all year.”
Brown has a chance to become just the fifth player in NBA history to win an NBA title a year after winning the NCAA championship, joining Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Henry Bibby and Billy Thompson.
The Browns gave the Nuggets a much-needed boost Defeat Denver for Game 3 by the Heat. With Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray making history with their first triple-double in the NBA Finals, the Browns scored 15 points in 19 minutes early tonight, Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope struggled again.
Brown’s stellar resume includes three state championships at Blue Valley Northwest High School in Overland Park, Kansas, and a national title with the Jayhawks last year.
Most freshmen who end their college career with championships have to bide their time in the pros until their time comes. The Browns are two wins away from an amazing fifth championship in seven years.
One of those non-title years came in 2020, when the pandemic shut down sports and society at a time when the Jayhawks were entering the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 team in the country.
said Brown, who helped Kansas win the national title two years later when he had 12 points and 12 rebounds in the Jayhawks’ 72-69 victory over North Carolina in the national championship.
“I’m definitely lucky,” Brown said. “It’s not necessarily an individual achievement. I’ve been part of some really good teams with really good coaches and really good players.”
As on the court, he has been in the right place at the right time his entire life.
“All year, the only thing I talked about with Christian was that he was a winner,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone. “The guy has won on every level, and here he is in the NBA Finals. It’s kind of staying true to Christian Brown.”
Malone said he knew Brown would be a big addition when the 6-7 shooting guard whose last name is pronounced “Brown” helped Denver win 128-123 at Golden State in the second game of the season with Murray in streetwear as he worked his way back from Torn anterior cruciate ligament.
“For a young player to play against a world champion on the road, he wasn’t afraid,” said Malone. “It really stuck out for me. Most young kids, faced with a situation or environment like that, would be a little in over their heads, and it wasn’t.”
Brown’s position is that if he’s only going to get minutes here and there, he’ll cycle from the moment he logs in to the moment he’s called back to the bench.
“For the last two months of the year, he was a first-team league player in the West,” said Malone. “He did his job in the playoffs. He went out there and pushed, bounced, hit the floor, and moved without it. He’s never afraid of the moment, which you have to appreciate for such a young kid.”
“Obviously the Final Four helped me with that,” Brown said. “I’ve been here before.”
even several times.
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA And https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Join the conversation