Denver Nuggets: Five storylines in the Phoenix Suns series
By Sean Carroll
Denver Nuggets vs Phoenix Suns: Can Mikal Bridges handle big wings?
The heading of this slide seems like a dumb question, Mikal Bridges just held his own against the biggest wing of them all; LeBron James. Why is this even a question against Michael Porter Jr?
And that’s right, Bridges did just hold his own against LeBron, maybe even getting the better of the two with LeBron only putting up 23.3 points with eight assists a night (“only” lol). But on the other side of the coin, this was the weakest we’ve seen LeBron in the playoffs. Losing his first-ever first-round series, it’s also the weakest the league has ever seen LeBron too.
Not to make excuses, but it’ll be a great test for Mikal to see if he can slow down MPJ who, outside of one game, has been scorching hot these playoffs.
MPJ has actually been shooting the ball better from nearly everywhere in these playoffs. I don’t think he got the memo that it gets harder in the postseason either.
If I’m going to hedge on Mikal’s defense with the LeBron comment, I better do our sister site Valley of the Suns a solid and do it for MPJ too. Porter was going at Portland’s poor defense.
But boy, I watch a lot of cooking shows on YouTube so I know what cooked looks like and… Portland got cooked by MPJ.
His 64.6 effective field goal percentage was paired with 79 percent at the rim and 41 percent from behind the arc per Cleaning the Glass. Those crazy numbers were punctuated by his 22-point first quarter in the closing Game 6.
If it wasn’t for Damian Lillard going crazy in the series, there’s a good chance we’d be talking more about MPJ’s brilliance (thank goodness for Nugg Love then, hey?).
Unfortunately for Michael, if he does happen to score efficiently on Bridges, Monty Williams can just give old friend Torrey Craig or even Cam Johnson a look on Porter.
Either way, Bridges leaves the series looking like one of the best wing defenders on the planet after his two series, or MPJ would have to walk around with a ‘caution: hot. Do not touch’ sign. It’s a win-win.