Michael Porter Jr. has to be better

Michael Porter Jr. got the switch that would typically make any offensive player’s eyes light up. Early in the fourth quarter of the Nuggets’ 122-110 loss to the Jazz, Porter was 1-on-1 with Rudy Gobert at the top of the 3-point arc with no sign of a double-team or defensive help coming his way. Porter went between the legs, put a shoulder shake on Gobert, got to his left hand and into the paint.

Then, he stopped.

It was an eye-opening moment. It’s not often that you see Porter, a player with the utmost confidence in his own abilities, look so unsure of himself in a situation he’s been in thousands of times. Everyone watching Tuesday’s Nuggets-Jazz showdown thought Porter would put a move on Gobert and attempt something.

But Porter didn’t, and then turned it over trying to loft a soft, one-handed chest pass to Monte Morris, who was standing at the 3-point line 15-feet to his right. It got intercepted. The Jazz raced down the floor, and after a Nuggets defensive mixup that began with Facu Campazzo guarding Gobert in the paint, Utah came away with an easy layup.

Porter has been far from Denver’s only disappointment so far this season, which you have to remind yourself after games like Tuesday’s is only four games old. What Michael Malone envisioned as his primary second unit coming into the season has been outscored by a staggering 32 points in only 29 minutes. The eye test with that group looks worse than the numbers.

But Porter’s play stands out the most, because well, he’s Michael Porter Jr., now armed with a max contract that will kick in next season. And as I wrote, discussed and debated throughout the summer and preseason, this season largely hinges on him being able to take the night-to-night scoring pressure off Nikola Jokic while Jamal Murray recovers from ACL surgery.

We’re four games into the 2021-22 campaign and that hasn’t happened. Porter is averaging 11.5 points and shooting just 18-52 (34.6%) from the floor and 9-28 (32.1%) from 3-point range. He’s 3-12 on catch-and-shoot 3s after hitting 46.5% of those shots last season. One way the Nuggets wanted to maximize Porter this year was to have run hard to the corners in transition and take advantage of his accuracy on corner 3s, which he hit at a 48.4% (44-91) clip last season. Through four games, Porter has attempted only three total corner 3s. He’s missed all three. One of his corner 3-point attempts vs. Cleveland earlier this week hit the side of the backboard.

“Mike is one of the most skilled shooters I’ve ever been around, so I’m not worried about Mike,” Aaron Gordon said. “He’s going to keep shooting. He’ll score for us. He’s so talented. He’s been talented his whole life. He’s been scoring his whole life He’s been shooting his whole life.”

Like Gordon said, Porter will eventually make shots. His historical shooting season last year wasn’t a fluke. He’s put in the work and the reps to become one of the best shooters in the NBA. Porter will eventually see the ball go through the net, maybe Friday at home vs. Dallas. It could really only take one hot shooting night for Porter to turn his season around.

But more concerning or alarming is how Porter has operated within a Nuggets starting lineup and rotation that’s clearly looking for him to step up as the next offensive option behind Jokic. He’s looked lost at times within the offense. He still needs to move way more without the ball, something Malone has been pleading for him to do over the last two-plus seasons. His confidence has looked shaken. There were times Tuesday night in Salt Lake City when I wondered if Porter actually wanted the ball. I never thought that notion would cross my mind with him.

It’s such a surprising start considering all the momentum had been on Porter’s side entering this year. Porter closed last season so strong after Murray went down in Golden State on April 12. Nine of Porter’s 15 highest scoring games last season came in late-April or May with Murray out of the lineup. Porter scored at least 20 points in three of six games vs. Portland in the first round of last year’s playoffs and sunk six 3s in the first quarter of Denver’s closeout Game 6 win.

At times Porter has been a more engaged defender and he actually made some really strong defensive plays vs. Utah, like these two steals. Monday vs. the Cavs, Porter came over from the weakside for a timely block at the rim against Jarrett Allen too.

“He’s put in the work to try and no longer be that player that teams can try and exploit every time down,” Malone said pregame Tuesday. “He has a lot of pride, and that’s what is most important for me. If you care and you take pride and you’re willing to work, you will improve.”

But the mistakes he still does make are still loud and a lot of the time extremely costly. With 51 seconds left in the first half of Denver’s home loss to Cleveland, Porter got pulled from the game partially due to not making an “effort play” and not venturing out from the paint to contest a corner 3. I thought we were beyond those.

Tuesday’s second half also presented Porter with a massive opportunity. After posting 24 points on 8-9 shooting in 15 minutes, Jokic exited the game for good with a right knee contusion after bumping knees with Gobert just before halftime. Early indications are that Jokic avoided a serious injury and will be OK.

Instead of Porter stepping up to fill the void, it was Will Barton who kept Denver alive in the third quarter when he scored 16 of his 21 points. Porter went scoreless in the third on 0-3 shooting and hit two field goals — both of which were 3s — in the fourth. The first came on a catch-and-shoot triple on the Nuggets’ third possession of the quarter. The second 3 came with less than 30 seconds left and the game already decided.

With Porter, we’ve seen him flip the script quickly. Sometimes it takes one make for him to catch a rhythm. But he’s too important to the Nuggets’ goals over the next several months to stay this quiet offensively. Even with Jokic putting up scoring numbers that are actually better than what he posted last season — he’s averaging 26.8 points, up from 26.4 last year despite currently averaging less than 30 minutes per game — the Nuggets are the 24th ranked offense.

They’ll probably stay around there until Porter finds his game.