Bruce Brown will always hold a special place in Denver Nuggets history. The Indiana Pacers guard returned to the Mile High City on Sunday for a matchup with his former team, the first time he's been in Denver since helping the Nuggets win their first championship in franchise history last season.

Brown received an unsurprisingly warm welcome from his old teammates during pre-game warmups, sharing hearty, playful embraces with Nikola Jokic and DeAndre Jordan.

Just before tipoff, Brown received his 2022-23 championship ring from former teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Jokic and company couldn't help but join in on the commemoration, though, as cheers of “Bruuuuce” rained down from the Pepsi Center rafters.

Brown signed a two-year, $45 million deal with the Pacers—that contains a team option for next season, it bears mentioning—in free agency last summer after proving a pivotal cog on Denver's dominant run to the title. Both parties have only praised one another in the interim, Jokic joking before the season that the Nuggets were “mad” at Brown and may not “give him a ring.”

Of course, we are mad at him. We won’t talk to him. Maybe we won’t give him a ring,” he said of Brown at media day, per DNVR Sports. “You know, it’s something that’s natural and needs to happen — not just for him. We have some new guys who can fill that role and guys who played last year who can fill more minutes. So I think we’ll be okay.”

Brown has started every game he's played with Indiana this season, averaging 11.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game on 57.1% true shooting, the same efficiency he managed with Denver a year ago.