Christian Braun Has Clear Emphasis for Nuggets' Upcoming Stretch

The Denver Nuggets are entering one of their most crucial stretches of the season across their next three games.

They start off back at home against the East's second-seeded Boston Celtics, then travel to face the league's best and reigning champion OKC Thunder later in the week, then finish off back at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves over the weekend.

It's far from a simple slate that the Nuggets have in front of them, and especially when factoring in Denver's recent hiccups through the season––going 4-6 in their last 10––it'll take some real effort on both ends of the floor for this group to get over the hump to win a majority of those three games.

For Nuggets wing Christian Braun in particular, the key for Denver to get back on track centers on two prevailing factors: protecting the ball better and some improved defense.

"Coming off a loss like that [vs. Golden State]... we need to respond, and this week is a big week for us to respond," Braun said. "We've got some good teams these next few games. We understand the challenge, and we've just got to meet the challenge."

"We've just got to guard; guard and take care of the ball. That's kind of the thing for us; it's been the same thing for us since I got here. When we guard teams and we take care of the ball, we tend to win a lot of games. We know we're going to score, no matter who's out there. Whatever the lineup is, we always score a lot of points. We've just got to pay attention to detail, especially at the end of games. I feel like we need to close better."

Braun in particular has started to come alive within the Nuggets' lineup following his injury-plagued first half of the season.

In his past five games, albeit with a 2-3 record, he is averaging 14.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 1.0 steals while playing in 33 minutes a night. His efficiency on the offensive end has also turned a major corner, as he's shot a combined 61.4% from the field and 43.8% from three on just under nine attempts a game.

However, when it comes to the Nuggets' consistency on the defensive end, combined with consistent troubles in limiting turnovers, those two factors can end up sinking the ship for any NBA team— which just so happens to be why Denver's struggling a bit more than expected in the past few games of the season.

Especially when going up against a trio of standout teams in their next handful of games, ensuring that the Nuggets are calculated to limit dreaded turnovers to give teams easy points, while also being strong on both ends of the floor, might just be the difference in games where margins become thinner against some of the best rosters in the league.

Therefore, expect not only Braun, but the entire Nuggets collective to put a major emphasis on those two factors for their games on the horizon.