Nuggets’ Christian Braun, former KU star, goes viral with huge dunk on Rudy Gobert
“Christian Braun detonation!” blared the headline on the NBA’s official social media X account Friday night in response to the rim-rattling slam dunk of the Denver Nuggets wing in Friday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center in Minneapolis.
Braun, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound, 23-year-old former University of Kansas and Blue Valley Northwest High standout had perhaps the best dunk of the young 2024-25 NBA season, slamming two-handed in the face of four-time NBA defensive player of the year Rudy Gobert in the fourth quarter of Denver’s 119-116 loss.
Braun charged from the top of the key through the lane while dribbling with his left hand to complete a two-handed thunder dunk in the face of Gobert.
Braun screamed and walked past the baseline into the face of Gobert, who thrust his left arm around the neck of the third-year pro, putting him briefly in a headlock, and effectively moved him back onto the court.
Braun’s teammate, Russell Westbrook, charged into the fray in an attempt to support Braun. He and some other players from both teams, plus the officials and some coaches, made sure to separate the players to avoid any escalation. Indeed no punches were thrown.
The refs assessed technical fouls to both Braun and Gobert — Braun for his “unsportsmanlike act of taunting,” and Gobert for “illegal physical contact during a dead-ball.”
“He dunked on me. That was incredible, but what happened after the dunk was what I didn’t like. But the dunk was great. It’s part of the game, there’s a lot of adrenaline going on. I respect him, it was a nice dunk,” Gobert said as quoted by Yahoo!Sports.
The dunk, which went viral and was all over social media site X after Friday’s game, gave Denver a 110-102 lead with 5:13 left. However the Timberwolves, who defeated the Nuggets in the 2024 Western Conference semifinals in seven games, went on a 10-point run to end the game and rallied for the win.
Gobert finished the game with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting with 14 rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Braun had 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting with seven rebounds.
Coincidentally Braun last April completed three dunks with Gobert in the vicinity in a 63-second stretch of a regular-season game against Minnesota. Denver won the game, 116-107. First Braun dunked on Gobert off a pass from Nikola Jokic. Next he hauled in a long baseball pass from Jamal Murray and dunked over Gobert with Nuggets teammate Peyton Watson rolling to the rim distracting Gobert.
Finally, Braun leaped off his left foot, switched the ball into his left hand and again finished a one-handed slam over Gobert.
“I would definitely say it’s probably the best (dunk) so far,” Braun said to the Denver Gazette, referring to that lefty slam versus Minnesota last April. “The sequence was really fun, too. Just getting up and down, that’s when we play our best basketball,” Braun added.
“It was like a dunk show,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said of last year’s sequence by Braun.
Braun told the Gazette last April the secret to his jumping ability.
“I worked out a little bit growing up, but I don’t know,” Braun said.
“My dad tries to take credit for it, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen that. I don’t usually try (it) in the fourth quarter of a big game like that, but … I didn’t want to go up with a layup against the best defensive player in the league,” Braun said. “You’ve got to attack him strong.”
As of Friday night, there had been no comment from Braun on his latest dunk. He is averaging 14.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game for Denver (2-3).
