The Nuggets are on an incredible run as the season winds down.
The Denver Nuggets are rolling, and Bruce Brown has a front-row seat to everything clicking at once.
After Denver's 130-117 win over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night, Brown kept his postgame comments short and sweet when asked about the team's seven-game winning streak.
"I just think we're getting out in transition, making, getting easy buckets, finding Jamal," Brown said. "He's on a heater right now and then just playing together, coming together."
He wasn't wrong about any of it.
Jamal Murray torched the Jazz for 37 points while drilling 10 three-pointers, including a half-court heave that beat the first-quarter buzzer, and the Nuggets jumped out to a 17-3 lead before Utah could even settle in.
Murray has been one of the best scorers in the league all year, putting up 25.6 points and 7.1 assists per game in what has been his best individual season to date, and the way he's shooting right now has Denver looking like a team nobody wants to face in April.
Nikola Jokic added another triple-double with 15 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists, which was his fifth in six games, because of course it was.
Denver's Winning Formula
The Nuggets sit at 49-28 with the postseason approaching, and their roster is finally healthy after a season that saw all five starters miss time at various points.
The seven-game winning streak has included wins over Dallas, Phoenix, Portland, Golden State and two over the Jazz, and the team is averaging well over 120 points during that stretch.
Transition offense has been a huge part of it, just like Brown mentioned, and with Jokic pushing the ball ahead and Murray finishing at an elite level, Denver's fast break has been almost impossible to stop.
And the whole thing is even more meaningful for Brown personally.
The 29-year-old guard returned to Denver last summer on a one-year minimum deal worth $3.63 million after two of the roughest years of his career.
He left the Nuggets as a fan favorite following the 2023 championship run, chased a bigger payday with Indiana on a two-year, $45 million contract, and then watched everything unravel.
He was traded from the Pacers to the Raptors in the Pascal Siakam deal, dealt with a recurring knee injury that sapped his effectiveness, needed arthroscopic surgery that delayed his 2024-25 season, and then got shipped to the Pelicans in the Brandon Ingram trade before becoming a free agent.
Brown's Second Act in Denver
Through it all, Brown wanted to come back to Colorado.
He said as much at media day in September, and even though his role is different this time around, he's been a steady contributor off the bench.
Brown is averaging 7.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists while shooting 47.2 percent from the field and a career-best 39.7 percent from three, and he's brought the two-way toughness and veteran presence that a playoff team needs from its bench.
He scored in double digits in three straight games heading into the Jazz matchup and has looked more comfortable than he has since he was last wearing a Nuggets jersey.
It's a long way from the $23 million a year he was making in Indiana and Toronto, but Brown seems at peace with it.
Denver is where things work for him, and with the playoffs on the horizon and the team playing its best basketball of the season, the timing couldn't be better.