When Michael Porter Jr. cooks, everybody eats. The Nuggets are 12-1 when MPJ drops 21 points or more. They’re 14-4 when he nails at least four treys in a tilt.
“We always talk about (how) we can make it so much easier on him,” Jamal Murray said of his wing man late Sunday night after Denver rallied past the Los Angeles Clippers in overtime. “He doesn’t have to take tough shots — we can get (him) 30 just off catch-and-shoots.
“So it’s nice to see him lace it up and have that confidence and have a big game like this. It was really fun to see him in that groove.”
You know what’s even more fun? The groove forming right now between MPJ and the Blue Arrow.
Porter put up 29 points against Lob City on 12 makes, four from beyond the arc. Of those 12 field goals, five came off a direct feed from Murray. The Arrow-to-MPJ combo accounted for 12 points on the evening.
“Yeah, I think that’s grown definitely over time,” said Porter, whose Nuggets take their 43-19 record and No. 1 seed in the Western Conference into Houston (13-47) on Tuesday. “I think we just have developed a bond off the court that has translated to on the court.”
At this time last year, the pair were the show before The Show, with a rehabbing Murray (knee) shooting at one end of the court during warm-ups while Porter (back surgery) would do the same at the other. MPJ played nine games in ’21-’22 before shutting it down. Murray took the whole season off to get right.
While Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon were left with the heavy lifting, the Nuggets’ injured stars, Murray and Porter, were often left with one another. From those strange, star-crossed seeds, a friendship grew.
“We’ve kicked it more this year and kind of when we were hurt more than we had before,” MPJ explained. “Going to church together, things like that. I think that’s translated on the court. I think we just have more trust in each other.”
Which was never more apparent than with 27 seconds left in regulation as the Nuggets trailed 118-117 and left looking for a miracle after a scrappy Kentavious Caldwell-Pope offensive rebound gave them a second chance at magic.
From the center logo, the Blue Arrow kept his shoulders and eyes squarely at Jokic in the paint, the way a quarterback looks off a safety. He then fired a cat-quick chest pass to the right corner, just beyond the arc, where MPJ flashed. And splashed.
Has faith ever been this much fun?
“Now that he’s feeling healthier, you’re just seeing the complete player that he is,” coach Michael Malone said of Porter. “He’s not just a one-trick pony that can make threes. He can score in the paint, driving to the basket, he can make big threes, he can rebound, he can use his length on defense. So (I have) so much respect for Michael’s continued development and maturation.”
An underrated aspect of that process has been the way MPJ’s earned Murray’s belief in crunch time. Porter’s trey with 27 seconds left was his 32nd make this season off a Murray pass. In overtime, they hooked up again for the 33rd time on a Porter basket, a new season-high assist-to-conversion combo for the duo with 20 regular-season games still to go.
In ’20-21, Murray-to-Porter accounted for just 29 MPJ makes. During the ’19-20 campaign, Porter’s rookie season, Murray assisted on just five conversions.
‘Mal-to-Mike was not born overnight. On Sept. 10, 2020, during the West semis against these same Clippers, Murray had the rock late in the game and a choice: Feed Jokic at the top of the circle or find Porter alone in the left corner.
Murray ignored the rookie and fed the big man. Joker fired and missed. All the while, MPJ just stood there in the corner, hands open, even after Jokic’s shot went up, almost showing up his point guard for dramatic purposes. LOOK HOW OPEN I WAS, DUDE.
“I just didn’t touch the ball,” Porter said after the game, raising eyebrows across the Twittersphere. “(The Clippers) didn’t do anything different.”
Fast forward two years and five months, and this was what MPJ offered up as Sunday evening rolled into Monday morning:
“Just because you’re not touching the ball, you have to stay focused. Earlier in the game, if you’re not getting touches or whatever, you can kind of get frustrated … but down the stretch of the game, all you’re worried about is winning.
“So even if you don’t get a touch for about five minutes, you’ve still got to go down and get a stop …
“All year, we’ve been sharing the ball. I mean, guys are sacrificing different amounts on our team. But overall, I think for the most part, dudes are happy. And we’re all — we’re playing for a championship, so all the egos and things like that are definitely put to the side.”
Something’s cooking, all right. Something special.
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