When the Nuggets finally got home from a dreadful road trip, not everyone was ready to sleep it off.
Christian Braun, Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther are apartment neighbors. They hang out almost every day, usually congregating at Braun’s place. “It’s an open house,” he said.
In this situation, it was open invite. The Nuggets had just landed in Denver after nine days and a 1-4 record on the road. The three neighbors happen to be part of a second unit that had just been called out by coach Michael Malone. After a 105-86 loss to the Rockets, Malone told his team in the locker room that he planned to make changes to bench players’ minutes.
Back in Denver, the young players gathered.
“We just talked through it,” Braun told The Denver Post. “We knew that was on us. We knew we’ve gotta play better, so we just hung out and talked about it.”
“Just keeping each other in the right mental space,” Watson said. “In a positive space.”
If growing pains come with the territory of relying on a young bench, then Malone, who later acknowledged the balance between tough love and empowering confidence in those players during tough times, has at least been consistently pleased with the character that his occasional frustration has revealed in them. After a poor showing in Houston, Watson bounced back Sunday against the Spurs with his second career Defensive Player of the Game chain. He registered four points (including a miraculous floater over 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama), four rebounds, two assists, two blocks and a steal. Strawther added 10 points, four assists and three steals.
“One, it’s me taking a step back, taking a deep breath, saying a Hail Mary, whatever it may be, and kind of remembering: ‘Hey, Julian was in college last year,'” Malone said. “‘Peyton didn’t play last year. Christian is a second-year player. Zeke (Nnaji) is a fourth-year player that hasn’t played a ton of basketball because of injuries.’ So I’ve gotta be constantly reminding myself to help them. I have to help them through this.
“But yeah, in all my conversations with all those guys, the one-on-one conversations, what you love about them is that they’re willing to look in the mirror. They understand they have to be better, and they own it. There is no ‘yeah, but…’. That kind of work ethic that they all have and that kind of coachability only bodes well for all their futures.”
It helps for the newbies to have each other, too. Braun already went through the ups and downs of being a rookie on a championship-caliber team. Even though it’s only his second season, he understands those experiences make his perspective especially relatable to players like Watson and Strawther, who are being asked to play regular NBA minutes for the first time. Watson says he watched Braun closely throughout last season to gain a sense of how gradual rookie growth is.
So the apartment is open. On off nights, they often watch other games together. Mostly NBA, but sometimes college ball. Braun, Strawther and Watson all went to major programs in Kansas, Gonzaga and UCLA. When the team got home from an Oklahoma City afternoon game Oct. 29, they watched the Kings-Lakers overtime thriller that night.
“Just, order cookies, order some donuts and hang out,” Braun said.
“We enjoy hanging around each other,” Watson said. “… At the end of the day, we’re all we’ve got in this journey.”
Sometimes a basketball breather is needed. A recent trend of horror movies was Strawther’s idea, according to Braun. But selections such as “The Purge” and Jordan Peele’s “Us” rattled the host.
“It’s scary,” Braun said. “It’s too scary. I told them no more scary movies.”
This isn’t an unusual bond, of course. Teammates become friends. It’s an archetype across sports. But as Aaron Gordon pointed out before the season, “you don’t always like your coworkers. … It’s been like that in the NBA before, and it will be like that in the NBA again.” Gordon was identifying an aspect of what made the Nuggets’ starters so cohesive at sharing the floor en route to the championship last season. Simplified: They all like one another.
That’s the example that’s been set by Denver’s older players for Braun and company to see. If the Nuggets’ vision is to build a Spurs-esque machine that contends across multiple generations, it doesn’t hurt to start forming the friendships now.
It can pay dividends at a time like last weekend.
“There’s been a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows,” Strawther said. “We’re trying to navigate it all. We’re all young. At the same time, there’s a lot of expectation.”
Playing time didn’t end up changing significantly after Malone made his proclamation about the second unit, but that was partially a result of how they responded to his message. In the three games after Houston, Strawther was a plus-14 on the floor, far improved from a minus-28 his previous three games. Watson contributed eight more points, three rebounds and two steals in Denver’s dramatic win over the Clippers before sitting out Wednesday due to an ongoing head cold. He was ready by Friday, supplying sterling defense against Kevin Durant, who shot 0-for-10 in the second half. Braun has started to come into his own as a viable sixth man, making an impact at both ends.
“We’re in similar positions. Actually, competing for similar minutes. But that’s not what it’s about,” Braun said. “I think when I came in last year, all I had was a bunch of dudes that helped me out, tell me what I needed to know to get on the court. So I think it’s my job to do the same for them. Tell them the information that I got. … I think we know that if this team’s gonna be really good now and in the future, us three have to be really good.”
But sometimes this year, they won’t be. Braun’s apartment is waiting for when that happens.
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