Michael Porter Jr. could barely contain the smile, as if he surprised even himself.
Four minutes into a national TV broadcast — the same network where Porter went through an untimely (if ultimately irrelevant) shooting slump in the NBA Finals last year — Porter was cleared for take-off. It was last Friday night against the Pelicans. Porter received a pass from Jamal Murray on the right wing, drove to his left around Brandon Ingram and ascended around Jonas Valanciunas’ challenge at the rim.
“He attacked a close-out and had one of the best dunks I’ve ever seen him have wearing a Nuggets uniform: in traffic, on people,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Sunday after Denver won its second consecutive game, 117-109, over the Pacers.
Why was the dunk still on Malone’s mind 48 hours later? Because he doesn’t think those feats of athleticism from Porter should be taken for granted in Denver.
“I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves,” Malone said Sunday after Porter scored 25 points on 7-of-11 shooting from 3-point range. “What he’s doing has never been done before, from a medical standpoint. If you’re really gonna understand and look at what he’s doing, from a medical standpoint, the brace he wears every night and for him to go out and do what he’s doing — if you just take a step back, it’s just incredible.”
The brace Porter wears on his left leg every game is a byproduct of three back surgeries that have slowed him down throughout his career. Malone has been abundantly tough on Porter before, particularly over his defense, but when he has games like these or dunks like those, the ninth-year Nuggets coach takes a step back and marvels at MPJ’s resilience.
“I’ve gotta remind myself of that,” Malone said. “Because no one else has done what he’s doing, and I really admire that.”
The 6-foot-10 Porter continues to shoot the three around 40% this season. He’s also averaging 1.7 more rebounds than he did in 2022-23, while remaining the only Nuggets starter to appear in every game of the first half of the season.
“That’s the biggest goal for me, considering all I’ve been through,” he said. “More than good games, bad games, it’s being able to play in the games. Other than that, everyone has good games and bad games. But for me, considering what I’ve been through, I think health and just availability is the thing I can be (most) proud of.”
As the Nuggets (28-13) prepare for a daunting five-game road trip, Porter has scored 20 in back-to-back games while tacking on a season-high five assists in the win over Indiana. Two nights earlier against New Orleans, he supplemented his poster dunk with one of the finest assists of his career, an underhand scoop outlet pass that traveled the length of the floor over New Orleans defenders and into the waiting arms of Nikola Jokic.
Malone said he tries to be in constant communication with his high-usage players throughout the season to check on how they’re feeling physically and mentally. That goal applies even more to Porter, and it applied even more during the brutal stretch of back-to-backs between December and early January.
“That’s not just a conversation with Michael, but also our training staff,” Malone said. “Steve Short, who’s the director of our sports science team, making sure that he’s in a good place.”
The consistency of Porter’s presence on the floor has allowed his offensive game to develop more than usual by this point in the season. Though he’s never been a strong ball-handler, he’s recognizing and attacking close-outs off the bounce more. He has also taken to passing the ball out of his shooting form in mid-air when he senses the close-out is going to affect his 3-pointer, a maneuver that isn’t practiced away from games so much as it is refined by necessity in the moment.
“If I jump and I feel like a guy is gonna get a pretty good contest and I don’t want to shoot that contested of a shot, I’ll just pass it,” Porter said. “And I know that right when I land, I can cut and catch him by surprise.”
It backfired once Sunday when Jokic anticipated a cut and threw the ball to nobody; Porter had stayed in place. But when they’re on the same page — usually Jokic and all of his teammates are — it works for some of Porter’s cleanest 2-point looks.
“He’s gonna draw a crowd. People game-plan for Michael Porter Jr.,” Malone said. “And they run him off the line. … Continue to understand how important it is for him to pass and cut. Because his man is always gonna relax. And he’s so big, and Nikola’s going to find him every time.”
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