Christian Braun was found guilty of photobombing.
The evidence will live forever. In a basketball snapshot for the ages, he is basically Aaron Gordon’s shadow, lurking in the background at floor level while Gordon ascends into NBA history with his superhuman hops.
The first walk-off dunk in playoff history remained the talk of Ball Arena early this week. Each Nugget seemed to have his own subplot related to Gordon’s opportunistic Game 4 buzzer-beater. In Braun’s case, it was a self-deprecating reaction to the photos.
“I did actually go for it,” he said, laughing, when asked how close he was to attempting the put-back himself. “I did go for it. I actually ruined a couple of Aaron’s really cool pictures. I was in the back. But I did jump. He jumped a lot higher than I did.”
Michael Porter Jr. was standing alone in the weak-side corner, but he claims to be the secret mastermind behind the whole play.
“I give full credit to myself, actually,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “I went over and whispered to Joker. I said, ‘Hey, shoot it just so we have enough time to get a tip.’ And then AG tipped it in. So I give myself full credit.”
The buzzer-beater shook loose old memories for Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Jokic showed off his sneaky-encyclopedic appreciation of basketball history, recalling a 2010 EuroLeague semifinal with impressive specificity. Olympiacos Piraeus was trailing Partizan Belgrade by a bucket when Josh Childress caught Milos Teodosic’s airball and dunked it to force overtime.
It was remarkably similar to Denver’s play. Teodosic released his shot from the right wing, like Jokic, and Childress flushed it from the opposite side of the rim, like Gordon.
“Maybe I can help you guys write the story,” Jokic said.
Murray was trying to remember if he’s ever seen a closer bang-bang finish to a game than Gordon’s. The best example he could think of was, unsurprisingly, one of his own buzzer-beaters. (He has a long history of them.) Just don’t expect to find the tape on YouTube.
“I had one in high school,” he said. “It was from half-court. Same kind of thing. They actually had the replay (review system). It was kind of cool because you don’t really have that in high school. But … I don’t think I’ve seen one that close. Because I wasn’t sure (Gordon) got it off.”
Murray was standing at the top of the key on Saturday, giving him perhaps the best seat in the house for Jokic’s airball. When he was asked if he thought the initial shot had a chance, he tried and failed to give Jokic some credit: “I mean, with him shooting, there’s always a chance. But no.”
As for Murray’s half-court heave, he doesn’t think video proof exists on the internet.
Braun cannot say the same for his amusing role in an instant classic Nuggets moment.
“Aaron jumps really high off two feet. And I clearly didn’t,” he continued. “I’m gonna blame the contact with James (Harden), maybe. … In the huddle, we all talked about it. We know it’s the last shot. We know Nikola’s a really good passer when he spins and throws it up in the air. So we just knew that the ball was gonna be close to the rim, and we understood that you can crash if you get the last shot. … Aaron just happened to jump a lot higher than I did.”
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