At Nuggets training camp prior to the start of the 2019-20 season, Michael Porter Jr. learned the founding principle of Denver’s vaunted Jokic Ball offensive attack.
“If you’re standing, you’re wrong,” Nikola Jokic said at the time in regards to how he and the rest of the Nuggets’ roster was telling Porter to integrate himself into the offense.
Porter started to look like a Jokic Ball player last season as he learned to cut within Denver’s attack and play alongside two supreme scorers in Jokic and Jamal Murray. Understandably, it was an adjustment. Here’s the former No. 1 rated high school recruit who’s had the ball in his hands during pretty much every offensive possession throughout his entire basketball career. Going from that role to a third scoring option on a contending Western Conference team as a rookie was never going to be a smooth process.
But Porter paid his dues, and this year, which you have to keep reminding yourself is just his second NBA season, Porter fully committed to becoming a two-way player. He bought in on the defensive end of the floor. Offensively, he’s thriving and excelling in the exact role the Nuggets need him to fill.
Porter chipped in a cool 25 points on 11-16 shooting (3-4 from three-point range), to go with 7 rebounds in 29 minutes in the Nuggets’ 134-119 win over the Pistons. It was Denver’s sixth-straight victory and fifth win in a row since acquiring Aaron Gordon at the trade deadline. Tuesday night was hardly an A-level game from Porter, but it was still his fourth-straight 20+ point outing and his 10th 20+ point showing over his last 15 games.
It was another effective offensive performance from Porter, and quite frankly, it was another game where Porter didn’t have to work too hard to get the exact types of looks that the Nuggets want him to find within the flow of their offense.
There’s been a theme to Porter’s offensive production and efficiency over the last several weeks: he’s using fewer and fewer dribbles within Denver’s half-court attack but scoring as consistently as ever.
Porter made 11 baskets against the Pistons Tuesday and used only nine dribbles. Sunday against the Magic, Porter dribbled a grand total of one time on his eight made field goals which resulted in 18 points. Three games ago against the Clippers, he dribbled a total of five times on his seven scoring possessions. Last week against the 76ers, Porter dribbled four times to score 27 points.
“That’s all thanks to my teammates,” Porter told Altitude TV’s Chris Dempsey. “I had a 27-point game, only took four dribbles. So that’s obviously my teammates finding me, getting me to my spots. That’s all credit to them. I’ve just got to knock down the shot.”
Porter has shot at least 50% from the field in 15-straight games. Over that stretch, he’s averaging 21.4 points on 60.3% shooting from the field and 54.2% from three, and the Nuggets are 12-3. Most of his offense is coming off catch-and-shoot jumpers, cuts, offensive rebounds, and in transition. He’s averaging only 0.5 isolations per game this season, according to NBA.com tracking data. Porter’s offensive profile has turned him into one of the most efficient and effective scorers in the NBA.
Porter leads the NBA in True Shooting Percentage (71.2%) out of players logging at least 30 minutes per game since March 4 (15 games). He also has the third-best +/- in the league over that span. Porter’s +133 plus-minus trails just Rudy Gobert (+199) and Mike Conley (+139) since March 4.
The efficiency and simplicity of Porter’s offensive game while playing next to two 20-point scorers right now is reminiscent of how Klay Thompson operated alongside two other elite offensive options in Durant and Curry for three seasons with the Warriors. This year in Denver, Porter is playing with the same mentality that Thompson did in Golden State: shoot when you’re open, don’t hold the ball or overdribble, and cut when the defense overplays. It’s translated into Porter’s offensive profile looking an awful lot like Thompson’s did during the 2016-17 season, which was Durant’s first year with the Warriors.
Porter’s 49.8% conversion rate on catch-and-shoot threes is the second-best mark in the league behind Joe Harris out of players attempting at least four catch-and-shoot threes per game. Porter and Harris are also the only two players in the NBA who are shooting at least 45% from three on at least 5.5 three-point attempts per game this season.
“I think now, he’s set,” Nikola Jokic said of the current run that Porter’s on.
It was a simple assessment on the surface from Jokic, but one that cut the core of where Porter’s game currently is and how he’s found his place within the Nuggets’ offense. The 22-year-old has also really started to mesh and learn how to read and play off of Jokic, who’s throwing Porter an average of 2.6 assists per game over the Nuggets’ last 15 games, per NBA.com. When Porter has received a pass from Jokic over this current stretch, he’s shooting a pristine 61.9% from the floor.
At 6-foot-10, Porter gives Jokic a Randy Moss-like jump ball target to hit on cuts to the rim. Porter’s grasp of the Nuggets’ scheme has turned him into one of the NBA’s most dangerous off-ball players, something that as the season has progressed it seems like he’s realizing more and more. Porter wasn’t making these types of reads with the regularity that he is now earlier this season.
With Porter flourishing in a Thompson-like role beside Jokic and Murray, along with Aaron Gordon’s post-trade deadline inclusion, the Nuggets are a bonafide offensive juggernaut that it seems like no NBA defense has a prayer in stopping. If the season ended today, Denver would have the most efficient offense in NBA history.
The Nuggets are currently averaging 117.3 points per 100 possessions, which is a better mark than this year’s Nets, Jazz, Clippers, Bucks, and Blazers, who are all on pace to break the NBA’s all-time Offensive Rating record of 115.9 that the Dallas Mavericks set last year. The best offensive rating that the Durant-Curry-Thompson-led Warriors posted during their three-year run was 115 points per 100 possessions in 2018-19.
That’s the level of offense that’s attainable when you place the leading MVP candidate, who’s having one of the greatest offensive seasons in NBA history, alongside two 20-point scorers in Murray and Porter and two other dynamic offensive threats in Gordon and Will Barton in the same lineup. Denver’s new-look starting five is the No. 1 rated offensive lineup in the NBA that’s played at least 90 minutes this season. Even without Murray, who missed Tuesday’s win, the Nuggets posted a season-high 134 points with Monte Morris running point.
“It’s kind of pick your poison,” Barton said of Denver’s starting five. “All of us can make plays. All of us can put it on the floor. All of us can make threes.”
With the Warriors, Thompson’s ability to play his role and fit alongside two generational scorers in Curry and Durant helped lead the Warriors to back-to-back championships. Defensively, he was also a lockdown defender and is lightyears ahead of where Porter is on that end of the floor. The Warriors’ ability to rely on one of the best shooters in NBA history to limit an opponent’s top offensive option on the defensive end of the floor was central to Golden State’s three championships in four years from 2015-18.
But Porter has all the tools. He’s four inches taller than Thompson and a much more capable shot blocker and rim protector. His individual defensive growth over the last several months has been impressive and could be the deciding factor in determining just how far the Nuggets’ playoff run extends this season.
Offensively, he’s pretty much there. Porter’s ability to excel as a play finisher and not always a play starter is one of the key reasons why the Nuggets’ offense has leveled up this season. The Nuggets have won 15 of their last 18 games and over that stretch Jokic (25.3), Murray (21.1) and Porter (20.5) are averaging at least 20 points per game.
Porter’s 27-points on four dribbles against the 76ers got me thinking back to 2016 when Thompson posted one of the more impressive scoring performances of all time. In a December matchup against the Pacers, Thompson tallied 60 points on just 11 dribbles. He shot 21-33 from the field and 8-14 from three-point range.
Spot-up threes and timely cuts to the basket with little wasted motion in between, Thompson went full Picasso that night painting a basketball portrait of perfection. It was the stuff of legends, and Thompson’s combination of scoring, efficiency, and a lack of dribbling likely won’t be repeated again.
But if there’s one player who could score 60 points by using just 11 dribbles, Porter is probably that guy. He got about halfway there last week, and during a Seeding Round game last August against the OKC Thunder, Porter scored a career-high 37 points and only dribbled nine times on his 12 made baskets. Seven of those dribbles came on one of Porter’s patented full-court transition pull-up threes. Porter dribbled a total of two times on his other 10 baskets combined.
It feels like a lightbulb went off for Porter over the last month or so. He realized that NBA offense — especially when you’re playing alongside the most selfless superstar in the league and one of the best passers in NBA history — doesn’t have to be hard.
Porter’s getting the easiest looks of his career while playing under the same guiding principle that Jokic instilled in him at training camp over a year ago. That will continue if he keeps to his current role alongside Jokic and Murray. It was tough enough to guard the Nuggets when the Jokic-Murray two-man game was cooking. It’s impossible to limit them with Porter playing the perfect complementary role.
“Offensively he’s not pressing,” Malone said. “He knows he’s going to play 35 minutes most nights. The ball’s going to find him. We’re going to run plays for him.”
“I think he’s really settled down. He understands how important he is to this team.”
