Everyone in Denver is riding high after the Nuggets' incredible comeback victory in game one of their playoff series with the Clippers on Saturday. Denver dug itself into a 15-point hole in the first half, but they battled back to force overtime and eventually pulled out a 112-110 win in an instant classic in Ball Arena.
LA led for most of the game, and in a lot of ways, it felt like the Nuggets stole this one at the end. They came up with every big play down the stretch and outworked and outhustled the Clippers during the game’s biggest moments.
A big part of the hustle, energy, and comeback was the play of Russell Westbrook. Russ was great in this one, coming up huge down the stretch and forcing David Adelman to keep him on the floor down the stretch in the fourth quarter and in overtime.
That decision was the right one, and clearly warranted because of Westbrook’s play, but it was made much easier by the gruesome showing from Michael Porter Jr. MPJ played just 26 minutes and hit only one shot, scoring three points before getting benched for all of crunch time.
Nuggets can’t win this series getting nothing from MPJ
It worked out for them in game one, but this can’t be the norm going forward. Porter Jr. is a vital part of this team, especially on offense, and they badly need his shooting, spacing, and scoring to survive on offense.
In this game, it wasn’t just that he wasn’t hitting shots, it was his general malaise and low energy, and activity level. He simply wasn’t involved, and at times, it was easy to forget he was even on the court. He simply wasn’t impacting the game in any way, and when he was facing tough off-ball defense from guys like Kawhi Leonard, he seemed to accept his fate and just stop moving.
The Nuggets don’t have the depth to beat good teams without all of their top players playing well, and Mike is one of them. He is paid way too much to be a small role player who gets benched at the end of games. The team was able to dodge a bullet this time, but it can’t happen again.
Westbrook can’t be relied on to close every game
Beyond that, the Nuggets can’t simply assume that they’ve got a closer in Westbrook now. We know about the ebbs and flows of the Russ experience. We got a good game in game one, but there’s no telling what the next game will bring. David Adelman has to be prepared to pull the plug on Westbrook when things go off the rails, and that’s almost certainly going to lead him back to MPJ.
This may be a tough matchup for Porter Jr., but he’s too good a player and too big to get completely taken out. He needs to work much harder and get involved in the offense. If he’s running off screens and dribble-hand-offs and ends up shooting 3/14 on the night, so be it. We can all live with bad shooting. But for him to only get up 4 attempts in a playoff game is unacceptable.