Jamal Mur­ray issued a chal­lenge to his lock­er-room neighbor.

He need­ed to be enter­tained some­how. And some­one oth­er than Niko­la Jokic was going to have to score to make up for Murray’s absence. He was recov­er­ing from a ham­string injury, and the Nuggets were halfway through a month of fend­ing with­out him. It was Nov. 17, 2023, in New Orleans.

So Mur­ray turned to Chris­t­ian Braun in the vis­i­tors’ lock­er room. Take a step-back tonight, he dared the 22-year-old.

“I end­ed up hit­ting three 3s that game,” Braun told The Den­ver Post, accu­rate­ly recall­ing the box score one year later.

Whether any of those 3s qual­i­fied as a legit­i­mate step-back is open for debate. But Braun made 11 of 19 shots from the field that night, attack­ing the bas­ket and unleash­ing jumpers with the con­fi­dence of a much old­er play­er. It was as if Mur­ray had pos­sessed him. His career-high 25 points revealed a momen­tary glimpse of scor­ing potential.

Braun hasn’t matched that yet, but it might only be a mat­ter of time. Espe­cial­ly if Mur­ray keeps chal­leng­ing him to out­do him­self — a trend that con­tin­ued Wednes­day night before Denver’s win over Okla­homa City. Braun has rock­et­ed out of the gate as the Nuggets’ new fifth starter, aver­ag­ing 16.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, a block and a steal per game through a tenth of the season.

“Let’s stop talk­ing about com­par­ing CB and KCP,” coach Michael Mal­one said Fri­day after Braun’s pre­de­ces­sor, Ken­tavi­ous Cald­well-Pope, was invoked in a ques­tion. “I don’t even think it’s worth­while anymore.”

When Cald­well-Pope signed with Orlan­do in free agency this sum­mer, Braun earned the pro­mo­tion with his defense. He’s vin­di­cat­ing it with a third-year leap on offense. In nine starts, he’s shoot­ing 55.8% from the floor — near­ly 10% high­er than he did in a small­er role last sea­son — and 50% from 3‑point range at an increased vol­ume of 3.6 attempts per game.

That’s where Mur­ray comes in. His seat is next to Braun’s in the lock­er room at Ball Are­na, but they post up next to each oth­er on the road as well. Last sea­son as Braun was turn­ing around his shoot­ing per­cent­ages, he cracked a joke to Mur­ray that he was going to be a runoff jump-shoot­ing threat soon. To Mur­ray, it was hard­ly a joke. He has grown fond of instruct­ing the younger guard on a night­ly basis — usu­al­ly noth­ing as spe­cif­ic as a step-back shot, but often a mes­sage involv­ing assertiveness.

” ‘Keep shoot­ing the ball. Keep being aggres­sive. Get up more attempts,’ ” Braun told The Post. “Con­stant­ly. When he’s hurt. When he’s not play­ing. He’s, before the game, telling me he wants me to do this. Dur­ing the game, he sees this. He’ll point it out. … It’s not just shoot­ing. He wants to chal­lenge me. ‘Hey, I want you to pick this guy up full court.’”

This week was anoth­er one of those times with­out Mur­ray in the line­up. He was going through con­cus­sion pro­to­col after sus­tain­ing a head injury Nov. 1 in Min­neso­ta. But on Wednes­day, before Den­ver host­ed the unde­feat­ed Thun­der, Mur­ray still made time to light Braun’s fuse.

“Let’s see New Orleans CB,” Mur­ray told him, accord­ing to Braun. “Let’s see that CB.”

Braun scored 24 points on 4‑for‑8 out­side shoot­ing, this time in a win. It was his sec­ond career 20-point game. Fri­day night against Mia­mi was his third.

“Even his first year, he was real­ly good when he went. In what­ev­er he did,” Mur­ray explained after Braun’s 21-point night on 7‑of‑9 shoot­ing vs. the Heat. “Just being more deci­sive. Not just more deci­sive, but more con­fi­dent in what he’s gonna do. If he’s gonna dri­ve, he’s going. If he’s gonna shoot, he’s shoot­ing. … It’s good to see him get it up and shoot with con­fi­dence. Even if he miss­es, the next one’s going up. He’s not think­ing about it. If he’s open, he’s let­ting it fly. Obvi­ous­ly, his game is more get­ting to the rim and dunk­ing on peo­ple, but he’s well-rounded.”

Braun is try­ing to mod­el rou­tines after what he observes Mur­ray and Jokic doing. He sur­rounds him­self with both. After sit­ting near Mur­ray in the lock­er room, he often plants him­self next to Jokic on the bench. He picks up on details that might help him man­age the increased toll he’s fac­ing, even after play­ing every game last year. See­ing Mur­ray use hot packs to keep the knees and ankles warm at half­time helped inspire Braun to use them. “I have to,” he said. “At all times, to be hon­est. On the bench. When I first come out, I’ve got­ta have one on my back.”

This is how Braun goes about learn­ing to be an NBA starter: tak­ing notes and accept­ing challenges.

Even nine games in, when the fit seems seam­less, he under­stands the 82-game grind hasn’t tru­ly test­ed him in his new role yet.

“I try not to think about it, to be hon­est,” he told The Post. “What­ev­er it is, you’ve got­ta show up. And I think I learned this from Niko­la. Ups, downs, hurt, feel­ing great, you’ve got­ta show up and do the same work every sin­gle day. Estab­lish a rou­tine, and no mat­ter how you feel, do that exact same rou­tine. … So I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to have lows or highs. I’m sure I’m gonna feel good some days. Some days, I’m not. That’s already hap­pened. Because I’m still get­ting used to it. I’m still learn­ing how to approach play­ing high minutes.”

So far, the KU alum is aver­ag­ing 35.3 per game, up from 20.2 last year. These min­utes are more stren­u­ous, too. The Nuggets expect him to shoul­der defen­sive respon­si­bil­i­ty for the best guard on the floor: Shai Gilgeous-Alexan­der, Antho­ny Edwards, per­haps Luka Don­cic when the Mav­er­icks vis­it on Sunday.

Resist­ing the instinct to make a bee­line for the bench after half­time has tak­en some get­ting used to. It’s a reflex built up from the first two years of Braun’s career. For the first time, he has to be phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly pre­pared the instant the game restarts.

“When Jok­er goes out (to warm up) at six min­utes (left in half­time), he nev­er miss­es that,” the guard said. “So one thing I learned: I had to go out there ear­li­er. At half­time, I had to go out there ear­li­er. I had to move around a lit­tle bit and stay warm. So there’s a lot of dif­fer­ent things I’ve learned, and there’s a lot of things I’m gonna con­tin­ue to learn through­out the year.”

In the mean­time, Mur­ray will stay in Braun’s ear about shoot­ing. The right ear, to be exact.

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