PHOENIX — Christian Braun and his instincts are constantly at war with each other. On Wednesday, he was at war with Aaron Gordon for the same reason.

“Aaron was kind of on me,” Braun recalled two days later. “I actually argued about it. But I was open a couple of times early in the (shot) clock. … You can hear it actually on the broadcast at one point. He said ‘shoot it’ to me. But he did multiple times.”

It went on and on, this argument, almost the entire game while the Nuggets were busy trying to fend off a comeback in New Orleans. Gordon sided with the team’s collective plea to Braun. They don’t want him to think twice when the ball finds him unguarded on the perimeter. Just shoot. Braun is a little more interested in the semantics. If he has a spot-up opportunity early in the 24-second clock, for example, there’s time to keep the ball moving and generate a better shot.

“But those guys need me shooting them when I’m open,” he relented Friday. “That way in the playoffs, it’s easier for them.”

Finally, with 4:25 remaining in New Orleans and a 93-85 lead, Braun buried a 3-pointer from the wing. The Nuggets were in comfortable position after that, and by one way of thinking, there wasn’t anything important to be gained from the last four minutes. Except for Braun, who was suddenly experiencing that unexplainable cosmic phenomenon known as “seeing one go in.” It snapped him out of a 2-for-17 start to the season from 3-point range. He made two more before the game was over.

It laid the groundwork for a wild performance in Phoenix. A full reversal from alarmingly cold to unreasonably hot 3-point shooting. A career-high 31 points on a night Denver needed every one of them to pull out a 127-120 win.

“What I loved about it was there really wasn’t any pause,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “There’s nights you watch guys when even if they shoot it … you don’t feel the confidence. Tonight, I did. He just let the thing go.”

Braun and Jamal Murray became the first Nuggets teammates to make seven 3s each in the same game. Both finished with a 7-for-9 stat line.

“Jamal’s pretty used to it,” Braun said. “I think obviously, me hitting seven is a welcome sight for the offense. I’ve gotta do it more consistently.”

Braun went on a 6-for-6 heater in the first half, then he saved his last for the 2:15 mark of the fourth quarter, pushing Denver’s lead to 11. In a heartbeat, he has improved his 3-point percentage from 11.8% to 40% five games into the season, starting with that shot in New Orleans. With those annoying reminders from Gordon to fire away.

“That’s just him trying to get me to play the right way and stay consistent,” Braun said.

“Not the preseason I wanted. Not the first few games I wanted. But it’s a percentage for a reason.”

His instinct to defer isn’t entirely misplaced. It comes from a place of self-awareness, at least, and that can be an uncommon character trait in the NBA. Braun knows that he’s the fifth-best offensive player in Denver’s starting five. It feels counterintuitive for him to take shots away from Murray and Nikola Jokic. The reason he’s often wide open is because the opponent wants him to be.

“Obviously, I’m open. Getting a lot of good looks because of how we’re played normally,” he said. “… I think naturally, when you’re missing, you want to pass them up. Especially when you have such talented offensive players on our team.

“I think when I find myself passing them up, it’s because I’m throwing it to Nikola, or I pass it up and I throw it to Jamal. I know those guys can make a play.”

That’s the mental battle Braun has been waging throughout his career. He turned off his brain Friday, exactly as the Nuggets want him to do.

In a league where defensive strategies are shaped by offensive reputations, this season could be a referendum on Braun’s status as a non-shooter. He shot 39.7% from deep on 2.8 attempts per game in his third season — the breakout year that earned him a $125 million contract extension. He shot 30.1% on 3.3 attempts per game in his fourth season, which was derailed by injury.

Opponents are happy, for now, to double-team Jokic or triple-team Denver’s dynamic duo, leave Braun open and live with the consequences. If he can prove last year was the anomaly instead of the year before, the Nuggets’ offense could reach its full potential.

“I feel like this whole season, I haven’t hesitated,” Braun said Friday. “I think I’ve been shooting the ones that are open and passing them when they’re not. … I think today I got a ton of good looks. They just hadn’t been falling before. So it’s easy to say something has changed. Nothing has changed. Process was the same. They just went in.”

Murray, who has long advocated for Braun to play with irrational confidence, concurs.

“That’s been his biggest improvement, honestly. Really the mental aspect of fighting through the misses,” the Nuggets’ All-NBA guard said. “Telling someone to shoot it is one thing. Them shooting is another. But then to keep shooting it through the misses — first game, second game, and then third game he starts to make it — that’s why I’m happy. To see him just continue to shoot it with confidence and no hesitation.”

Because when Denver turns down open shots?

“Normally, we turn it over,” Murray said. “We’re driving it back into the defense. … Doesn’t matter who it is. Just let it fly. We’ll grab the rebound. We’ll move onto the next play after that. We’re not worried about who’s shooting it, who’s missing.”

Murray has been known, on occasion, to issue secret challenges to Braun before games. Mostly when Braun was younger. Three years ago in New Orleans, he dared Braun to go rogue and attempt a step-back jumper. Braun scored 25 that night, a career-high at the time.

Another friendly push in New Orleans from another teammate helped set him on the path to 31 points in 2026.

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