Michael Porter Jr. is a closer, OK? And not the Wade Davis kind. He won’t ruin two hours of good work with 10 minutes of madness. He won’t turn your stomach to mush or a sure victory into a slasher film.
“He came up to me during the Phoenix series and said, ‘Listen, man, if you want to get Bruce (Brown) in at the end of a game, whatever you think is going to help us win the game, I just want to win,’” Nuggets coach Michael Malone recalled after MPJ’s double-double (15 points, 10 boards), along with a clutch steal late, helped the hosts escape Tuesday night with a 1-0 series lead over the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
“So it’s just another example of a guy being selfless, realizing that this is much bigger than any individual. This is about the collective.”
The stats say — not so much say as scream — that the best thing for the Nuggets collectively is for Porter to be on the floor in crunch time late. Scoreboard be danged.
As of early Wednesday, among NBA players with at least eight postseason appearances this spring, only Miami’s duo of Jimmy Butler (plus-4.4) and Duncan Robinson (plus-4.7), the Lakers’ Anthony Davis (plus-4.1) and Heat center Bam Adebayo (plus-3.9) had a better fourth-quarter plus-minus rating in the postseason than MPJ’s plus-3.7. Only Steph Curry (1.5) was averaging more fourth-quarter 3-point makes than Porter’s 1.3.
MPJ rolls into Game 2 Thursday night at Ball Arena leading the Nuggets in playoff fourth-quarter plus-minus, playoff fourth-quarter 3-point makes per game and playoff fourth-quarter blocks per game (0.3).
And as he reminded us with two swats in Game 1, including a trailing stuff of 6-foot-5 Los Angeles shooting guard Austin Reaves late in the second quarter, the 6-foot-10 Mizzou product is a matchup problem for a Lakers roster that’s small along the wings and even smaller in the backcourt.
“I’m really proud of Mike and how he’s defended,” said Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon, Denver’s defensive ace in the hole. “He got (beat) last week … he’s competitive and I don’t think he liked that very much.”
Jamal Murray (12 minutes) and Nikola Jokic (10:09) logged more fourth-quarter time on Tuesday night than MPJ (9:43), but the latter made his seconds count. And never moreso than with 2:32 left in the game while on the business end of a mad scramble following a missed Davis tip-in that would’ve pulled Los Angeles to within three.
A prone Porter, while lying on his back, wrestled the rock free from the prying hands of AD and the Lakers’ Rui Hachimura, shoveling it to teammate Kentavius Caldwell-Pope to start a breakaway on the other end and a two-handed Aaron Gordon dunk that put the hosts up six, 127-121.
“I just remember getting on the floor for it and easily could have been a jump ball,” MPJ recalled. “I tried my hardest to look for my teammates through the crowd and found KCP. And then it started a break and (Gordon) had the big dunk.”
“Big, big moment,” Jokic reflected.
“A game-winning type of play,” Malone added.
“I think this season has by far been Michael’s best defensive season of his very young career,” the coach continued. “Why is that? I think he’s using his 6-10 frame, 7-foot wingspan, and most importantly, he cares. He wants to. He wants to win a championship.”
As to that last point, this is the part of the series where Malone earns his money. Game 1s are part prep work, part feeling-out-dances. The Nuggets landed the first punch. Thursday’s all about the feint and the counter.
Lakers coach Darvin Ham came roaring out of the gate with the first major chess move, using his biggest defender, Davis, like a free safety in the paint, ready to close and help with his 7-6 reach whenever Jokic bumped the 6-8 Hachimura into the danger zone. With Davis changing shots and cutting off the Joker’s angles at the final instant, the two-time MVP was held without a field goal during the fourth quarter while the Lake Show chipped away at a huge lead.
“We kind of lost that (edge) a little bit in the second half,” Porter said, “but I think we’re cognizant of that.”
MPJ kept his mojo working throughout, cowboying up in the face of what he later described as “a little bit of knee soreness” that flared off and on.
“(I) took some Tylenol and played through it,” Porter explained later. “You’ve got to just sacrifice it all at this point of the season. No matter what it takes.”
Winners close. And thanks to MPJ, the Nuggets are three victories away from closing the coffin on their Michael Myers, their Jason Voorhees, a franchise’s biggest, cruelest, hairiest playoff nightmare. For good.
