MINNEAPOLIS — Michael Porter Jr. stood beneath the path of the basketball, between a miracle shot’s birthplace and its resting place. Even before it sailed over his head, he was in full “Gladiator” mode, arms outstretched prematurely, basking in the glory of the arc.
Minnesota was not entertained.
“I just had a good angle to see the trajectory of the shot,” Porter told The Denver Post. “The projection just looked good. I’ve seen ‘Mal hit some crazy shots, so I just thought it might go in.”
Jamal Murray’s 55-footer completed a jaw-dropping 8-0 run by the Nuggets in the last 20 seconds of the first half Sunday that shifted the alchemy of Game 4, and perhaps the 2024 NBA playoffs. The final margin was eight — Denver 115, Minnesota 107 — and the momentum of a championship-caliber second-round matchup that once seemed too daunting for the Nuggets to handle now rests in the palm of their hands.
“That was sick,” said Aaron Gordon, who played a team-high 41 minutes and scored 27 points on 11-of-12 shooting. “I mean, that was crazy, man. Jamal Murray, three-quarter-court three? So sick. You make something like that, it’s like, OK, at least we know our point guard is hot.”
“Nothing crazy,” Murray said. “I just shot it.”
A lapse in gameplan discipline was on his mind before the heave. With 47.5 seconds left in the half, he went under a Rudy Gobert ball screen. Anthony Edwards capitalized with an open 3-pointer. The Nuggets’ lead, which reached 16 points earlier in the second quarter, was down to 56-49.
On top of that, Denver failed to execute a two-for-one their next possession. Nikola Jokic typically prefers to get a shot up sufficiently before 24 seconds remaining in a quarter to buy an extra scoring chance, but Minnesota played formidable defense. Jokic was forced to swing it to the weak side, where Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was spotting up on the left wing. Caldwell-Pope was 0 for 3 from the field up to that point in Game 4. Since Game 1 of the first round, he was shooting 37.3%, including a 21.4% clip beyond the arc. But he sank this one with 0.2 left on the shot clock and 19.3 on the game clock. The lead crept back to double digits as the shot clock turned off for Minnesota.
The Timberwolves went back to their bread and butter: pick-and-roll between Edwards and Gobert. This time, Denver’s defense was organized. Gordon was on Edwards, as he had been much of the first half. And Jokic, consistent with his usual pick-and-roll coverage that returned to sharp form in Game 3, attempted to pester Edwards at the level of the screen while Gordon battled over it. Ant lost his handle, Jokic swiped the loose ball and flung it ahead. Porter chased it down for a dunk to punctuate the half with 1.6 seconds left.
Except then Minnesota started another sentence. Nickeil Alexander-Walker hastily attempted a pass into the frontcourt for Jaden McDaniels to chase down. It was over-zealous — an easy interception for Murray, whose rainbow shot departed his fingertips with 0.4 seconds left.
“I just wanted to go to locker room, just to rest a little bit,” Jokic said. “So I think I didn’t even celebrate with him. I was just walking.”
Everybody else on the visiting team seemed to know the shot was going in, though. DeAndre Jordan shouted “good!” while the ball was in the air, players told The Post. Christian Braun started to creep off the bench, anticipating the opportunity to sprint across the court and mob his locker room neighbor. He told Murray at halftime, “It looked good out of his hand for some reason.”
And then it turned out that maybe fate was involved. Murray told Braun that he caught the pass with his fingers on the seams of the ball, the way every shooter likes it lined up.
“He caught it perfect,” Braun said. “He said he felt it right away. … It just looked good. We kind of knew where it was going.”
Denver’s lead more than doubled by the end of those 19.3 seconds. The Timberwolves didn’t get closer than eight points until 1:41 remained in regulation.
“From that moment I think we kind of took control of the game,” Jokic said. “It’s easier to play when you’re up a little bit. Like last couple games, we were down 15, 20 every game. So it’s kind of easier when it’s at least tied.”
“It doesn’t feel like a lot, but when you’re down (eight) points it feels like a lot,” Braun said. “It’s heightened because of the playoffs.”
The Nuggets ultimately averaged 123.7 points per 100 possessions in Game 4 against the top-ranked defense in the NBA, only outdone by their Game 3 offensive rating (125.8). It was 87.9 in Game 2 back in Denver. “I think we got punched in the face, and it was a wake-up call,” Reggie Jackson said.
Michael Malone’s top priority as the series moved cities, he reiterated all week, was to make sure every Nuggets player boarded the plane believing in their capability to overcome a 2-0 deficit. After spending a weekend in the Twin Cities, “what I found about our group (is) that they do believe in themselves. And more importantly, they believe in the man next to them,” Malone said. “We have a group that is acting as you would hope a championship team would act.”
What could those 20 seconds mean in the grand revolving door of NBA playoff moments? A Nuggets win certainly would’ve felt less like a guarantee without the 8-0 run. Game 4 would have been a clutch time affair. Perhaps the Timberwolves would have prevailed for a 3-1 series lead — the springboard to an eventual series win and maybe even a run to the championship.
There’s a fair chance those 20 seconds don’t end up mattering. But there’s an equally fair chance they’re re-examined four weeks from now.
In a series characterized by its routs, those 20 seconds are the hinge point.
But there’s still something mysterious about the reaction on Denver’s bench while Murray’s 55-footer still had a long ways to travel. Why so much confidence that a far-fetched fling would fall?
“We’re a team that believes,” Jackson said, shrugging.
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