Michael Porter Jr.’s shooting has fallen off drastically in the Finals, but neither he nor the Nuggets are concerned.
DENVER – The second biggest moment of Michael Porter Jr.’s basketball life thus far was bittersweet. On an awkward night in Brooklyn, a sweet-shooting, 6-foot-10 forward whose talent ordinarily would have vaulted him to the top of the 2018 NBA Draft class instead sat near the stage at Barclays Center, in camera range, while other players’ names were called, pick after pick.
Porter slid all the way to No. 14, the final lottery slot, due to back surgery that mostly wiped out his lone season at Missouri and a canceled workout that really tipped the risk vs. reward scale against him.
“I’m not going to lie to you – I was stressed out,” Porter said that night after the Denver Nuggets selected him and got him out of the glare. “All that stress was overcome by joy the moment I got called, no matter what the number was.”
That’s a sentiment that Porter needs to revisit, now that the first biggest moment of his basketball life has turned bittersweet as well.
Here he is, on the game’s biggest stage, four games into his first NBA Finals. His team is one victory away from the championship, up 3-1 on the Miami Heat in the teams’ best-of-seven series. Yet Porter is sputtering through some of the roughest performances of his five-year professional career.
Four games in, Porter is averaging 8.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 0.3 assists while shooting 29.3% overall, including 13.6% on 3-pointers. He has launched 22 shots from the arc and made only three.
Those numbers pale compared to what Porter did during the regular season: 17.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.0 assists, shooting 48.7% and 41.4% on threes.
With the globe’s basketball media having descended on the Finals, Porter is the one Nugget facing tough questions, the only guy in his locker room having to explain himself or occasionally not even talking with those reporters at all.
“I mean, I wouldn’t even say I’m not feeling confident in my shot, I’m feeling pressure, anything like that. I’m just missing, you know what I mean?”
That was Porter between Games 3 and 4, after he went 1-for-7, missed his only two 3-pointers and played a playoffs-low 21:19.
“Sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in,” he said. “I think a lot of shots have been right there, I’ve just missed.
“Yeah, I know my teammates have confidence in my shot. I know my coaches do. Yeah, I’ll get it going. Hopefully tomorrow is a better game for me on that side of the floor. We all have belief in each other, that’s one thing about this team.”
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Denver coach Michael Malone had Porter’s back in answering the critics, even if he was the one reeling him back to the bench. He twice has proactively volunteered that Porter would remain in the Nuggets’ starting lineup – before any reporter even had raised the prospect of a change.
“Michael Porter isn’t making shots right now, and we know he is a great shooter,” Malone said. “We know what he is capable of. But he had seven rebounds [in Game 3] and he had some really good defensive possessions, and possessions in which he contested shots and was working on that end.
“In this business, if you are just a specialist, we’re not for you. We don’t like specialists. We like basketball players. … He has to find a way to help impact winning through being an unselfish player on offense, being a defensive-minded player, being somebody that rebounds the basketball. And his shot is going to fall.”
Porter had seen how rookie Christian Braun was so helpful in Game 3 with his energy and his cuts through the Miami defense, establishing himself as a moving target for MVP center Nikola Jokic’s crafty passes. Braun’s unexpected and largely opportunistic 15 points made a huge difference off the bench in Denver’s 109-94 victory.
Porter seemed more mindful in Game 4, relying less on his perimeter shooting and opting to cut or even dribble more often to the rim. This time he shot 4-for-10, had three rebounds, scored 11 points and was a plus-13, same as the final margin in the 108-95 victory.
“Really, we’re just scrapping and clawing,” he said Thursday. “This is a gritty team we’re playing against. It’s not always going to look pretty. We’re just trying to go out there and focus on effort rather than all the uncontrollables. That’s how we’ll get this series.”
Porter isn’t known as a scrapper or a clawer. He likes to shoot and he likes to score (who doesn’t?), and he does that well enough most of the time to justify that as the primary focus of his game.
But it gives him an air of favoring finesse over grit, being more thoroughbred than plowhorse and slow to shift into a grinding role when the showy stuff isn’t working.
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No matter. His teammates have been unwavering in their support through this slump.
“I don’t think Mike has a bigger critic than himself,” forward Aaron Gordon said. “I think he’s hard on himself. We tell him just to keep shooting. That’s the one thing that this team has encouraged since I’ve been here, is when you get an open shot, shoot it. That doesn’t change whether you’re making it or missing it.
“Mike is one of the best shooters on planet Earth. He has one of the best jumpers that there is, of all time.”
Gordon said in lieu of made baskets, he encourages Porter to get “touches” however and whenever he can.
“What I mean by touches is, any time you can touch the ball is how you get energy in the ball for yourself, then the balls start going in,” Gordon said. “Whether trying to get an offensive rebound, a tap-back, a deflection or a steal, a strip. Any time you can touch the ball, just do that and it will start to feel more rhythmic for you. The basket will open up, the balls will start going in.”
Nobody needs to feel sorry for Porter. Things have been working out fine in the big picture. His slide on draft night, for instance, still landed him with a team in need of his abilities.
He has had three back surgeries overall, wiping out his entire rookie season and all but the first nine games of 2021-22. In total, he has missed 223 games while playing only 187. Yet Porter had shown the Nuggets’ brass enough by Sept., 2021, to sign a five-year, $179.3 million maximum extension that kicked in this season.
Now he’s struggling in the Finals, even as Denver has played well enough as a group that Porter’s minor contributions have had value. It’s not what he had envisioned, certainly, but it’s been working. Imagine the volume and tone if the Nuggets were the team trailing 3-1.
Malone remains booster No. 1.
“I have no doubt – and I mean this, I have zero doubt in my mind – that Michael Porter is going to have a big game and help us win a championship,” the coach said.
Porter is running out of time to prove his coach right. But in a good way, so far.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Link LonkJune 11, 2023 at 09:40AM
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After hard-earned NBA journey, Michael Porter Jr. unfazed by Finals shooting woes - NBA.com
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