DENVER – If there’s a vibrant facet to how Bruce Brown’s 2023-24 season goes, it’s that he ought to be free to attend CMA Fest in Nashville this June.
The four-day pageant is billed as the final word nation music fan expertise, bringing collectively a number of the greatest names within the style for the festivities.
Brown — who was launched to nation music by way of his highschool girlfriend in Massachusetts, close to Boston — has attended previously however needed to give it a go final 12 months given he was busy profitable an NBA championship in his one season with the Denver Nuggets (a worthwhile compromise).
However for the boot-wearing, Carhartt overalls-having, cowboy hat fanatic, attending to go to Nashville within the low season goes to be one thing to sit up for after a season of upheaval and alter. The truth is, extra change might be coming for Brown this summer season, as he might find yourself being re-signed by the Toronto Raptors, traded or headed to free company.
Not less than being free in early June gained’t be a problem. Brown joined Toronto in mid-January as a part of the commerce that despatched then-Raptors star Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers, the place Brown had signed as a free agent following his title run with Denver.
And whereas the Raptors harboured ideas of maybe pushing for a spot within the play-in event at the same time as they started rebuilding in earnest, these plans evaporated roughly on the level that Scottie Barnes, after which Jakob Poeltl, every required surgical procedure to restore hand accidents, successfully ending their respective seasons. The Raptors are 2-12 with Poeltl out of the lineup this 12 months and 1-3 with out Barnes.
It hasn’t helped that Brown has now missed 4 video games with knee irritation, on prime of all that. He’s been ramping up his exercises previously couple of days so there may be some optimism he might be again within the lineup to face his outdated staff Monday night time, which’ll be Toronto’s third cease on a four-game street journey that winds up in Detroit on Wednesday.
“I all the time trying ahead to coming again right here,” mentioned Brown, who confronted the Nuggets and picked up his championship ring as a member of the Pacers again on January 14th, three days earlier than he was traded to the Raptors. “Nice followers, nice fan base, excited to see my earlier teammates. It is going to be nice to see everybody.”
Usually when a participant with expertise in opposition to an upcoming opponent is readily available, the teaching workers would possibly decide their mind on doable techniques, personnel and the remainder of it.
There’s not a lot level in that with Brown and the Nuggets. Not that Brown doesn’t know Denver’s schemes in and out, as a result of once you play 26 minutes a recreation for a staff that performs 20 playoff contests on their method to a championship, you get about as deep right into a staff’s playbook as doable. It’s simply that Denver is just about a riddle that is still unsolvable for opposing defences.
They don’t shock groups, they merely put the ball within the palms of two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and determine issues out as they go alongside.
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Jokic and Canada’s Jamal Murray present the construction with their devastating, cat-and-mouse two-man recreation. The pair mixed to common 56.1 factors a recreation over the playoffs on 52 per cent taking pictures, together with 42 per cent from three. Opponents had been required to select their poison, and so they died regardless.
“That two-man is certainly robust,” Brown mentioned. “When you may have [three-point threats] KCP (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) and MPJ (Michael Porter Jr.) on the wings after which Aaron Gordon within the dunker spot … what are you going to do? You simply received to hope they’re going to overlook photographs. Jamal is elite within the mid-range, Joker is elite with the ball in his palms, it’s sort of like simply hope they miss.”
Brown says his “welcome to Denver second” got here in his first recreation with the Nuggets when Jokic discovered him with passes he didn’t anticipate and he fumbled them out of bounds.
“After I received right here I used to be simply informed: ‘You bought to be prepared always, he’ll throw a no-look go proper to you.’ I dropped the primary couple in a recreation in opposition to Golden State, however after that, I caught each one.”
And Murray?
The 2 had historical past going again to highschool, and the Kitchener-raised star was fast to remind Brown that he had hit a game-winner over him again within the day, however after the preliminary re-introductions, Brown shortly noticed the Murray who’s the opposite engine driving Denver’s post-season success.
“He’s a terrific teammate, he simply desires to win. It didn’t matter if he had a superb night time, or I had a superb night time,” Brown mentioned. “I keep in mind in Recreation 4 of the Finals, I had my palms on the ball on the finish of the sport and he was like ‘Go, do your factor’ … there’s simply nice individuals over there.
“He’s a giant guard so when he will get to his spots he can stand up and he’s among the finest shooters I’ve ever performed with, at any degree,” Brown continued. “And he’s sneaky athletic. He’ll dunk on you. He tries on defence. He’s simply an all-round good participant. He’s received no holes in his recreation.”
Brown’s received just a few holes in his Colorado bucket listing. Whereas he liked Denver for its adjacency to the nation music scene — you’ll run into people sporting cowboy hats, boots, and Wrangler denims within the airport and even strolling downtown — and that the skinny mountain air did wonders for the carry distance of his driver when he performed golf, he regrets by no means having the ability to see a stay act at Pink Rocks Amphitheatre, the well-known live performance venue within the sandstone formations southwest of town.
He gained’t handle it this time round both, however there may be all the time Nashville in June.