How Nuggets rookie Michael Porter Jr. gained Michael Malone’s trust

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Nuggets rook­ie Michael Porter Jr. didn’t expect the back­lash that came from his postgame com­ments after Den­ver fell behind the Clip­pers 3–1 in the West­ern Con­fer­ence semifinals.

He didn’t antic­i­pate how his words would be spliced and his inten­tions deci­phered. Frus­trat­ed after a Game 4 loss that he felt he could’ve con­tributed more to, he wasn’t try­ing to bury any­body, let alone Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one or his teammates.

His point — well-inten­tioned but not art­ful­ly deliv­ered — was that every­body need­ed to touch the ball to beat a defense as suf­fo­cat­ing as the Clip­pers’. In the after­math, before a film ses­sion, the team briefly addressed his com­ments. Both Mal­one and Nuggets pres­i­dent of bas­ket­ball oper­a­tions Tim Con­nel­ly spoke, accord­ing to a league source.

The mes­sage was that on this stage, with a plat­form as large as the NBA play­offs, play­ers need­ed to be even more care­ful about what they said in front of a cam­era. The point was clear: In the future, when issues come up, address them inter­nal­ly and not in the emo­tion of a postgame news conference.

After it was addressed, the meet­ing shift­ed to a film ses­sion that got at the core of Porter’s com­ments. The coach­ing staff knew there was truth to what he’d said. So rather than bela­bor the man­ner in which it was deliv­ered, the ses­sion focused on what Porter could do to get him­self more involved.

“I stand by what I say,” Porter said after Game 5 when a sec­ond-half ral­ly kept the Nuggets’ sea­son alive. “I didn’t mean it in any type of dis­re­spect­ful way or any­thing like that.”

There are any num­ber of turn­ing points the Nuggets could cite when look­ing for the moment the Clip­pers series flipped and paved the Nuggets’ path to the West­ern Con­fer­ence finals. It could be that team meet­ing, the Paul Mill­sap-Mar­cus Mor­ris flare-up in Game 5, or even Game 3, which left the Nuggets smart­ing over a poten­tial win they let get away. But when Porter con­nect­ed on a clutch 3‑pointer late in Game 5, and the bench erupt­ed in cel­e­bra­tion, it was clear there were no hard feel­ings. The Nuggets would win Game 6 with anoth­er elim­i­na­tion-defy­ing ral­ly and take Game 7 con­vinc­ing­ly to reach their first con­fer­ence finals since 2009.

And through­out the three fourth quar­ters in Games 5, 6, and 7, only Jamal Mur­ray aver­aged more min­utes (10.8) than Porter (9.9).

“I think our coach has done a great job chal­leng­ing him and also empow­er­ing him,” Con­nel­ly told The Den­ver Post. “It’s been fun to his development.”

To think that Mal­one would trust Porter to that extent, a round after he’d benched him for his defense, was stunning.

“In those games, the games that you talk about when he’s on the floor when so much is hang­ing in the bal­ance, that’s invalu­able for a young play­er,” Mal­one said Sat­ur­day, one day ahead of Game 2 of the con­fer­ence finals against the Los Ange­les Lak­ers. “I think what’s earned him those min­utes is that he’s real­ly bought in, grown and com­mit­ted to the defen­sive end of the floor.

“The offen­sive end comes easy for Michael. He’s so tal­ent­ed, he’s so skilled, and he can go on a scor­ing run all by him­self. His rebound­ing has always been there. But for him to get those min­utes to close games, he has to be able to defend. And I think from Game 1 in Utah, round one, all the way through now start­ing the West­ern Con­fer­ence Finals, his defen­sive improvement’s been remarkable.”

Despite not shoot­ing it as high a clip as he’s capa­ble of, Porter has still rebound­ed at a tremen­dous rate and his defen­sive aware­ness has improved drastically.

“The biggest part that I’ve seen improve­ment in is his rota­tions,” his dad, Michael Porter Sr., said. “I think he’s come a long way in under­stand­ing, ‘Ok, yeah, for a minute this is my guy, but once we start rotat­ing, it’s a scram­ble, and I might be guard­ing a guy in this cor­ner, but then I got­ta show on the roller, tag the roller, and then I might have to get out to the oppo­site cor­ner to get the shooter.’”

Porter’s dad has been inside the “bub­ble” here for near­ly a month. Depend­ing on if it’s a game day or not, father and son will alter­nate between break­fast and din­ner together.

“It has meant every­thing to me to be here to see it in per­son,” Porter Sr. said. “Win, lose or draw, being here and see­ing these guys play and specif­i­cal­ly my son progress the way he has is just bless­ings on top of bless­ings. … He’s nev­er lacked con­fi­dence as to whether or not he could play at this lev­el, but I think this bub­ble expe­ri­ence has even rein­forced to him that, ‘OK, man, I take care of my busi­ness, I can play and be real­ly effec­tive at this level.’”

For months, Mur­ray has been an active par­tic­i­pant in MPJ’s improve­ment. In prac­tice or games, Mur­ray is always chirp­ing at Denver’s bud­ding rook­ie. And it’s because he rec­og­nizes his tal­ent and knows he’s only begun to scratch the surface.

Mur­ray has nev­er pub­licly com­ment­ed on what Porter had to say that night, but his answer Sat­ur­day sug­gest­ed he’d seen a change in Porter’s approach.

“I just think his patience right now,” Mur­ray said. “He might not touch it every sin­gle time on the court, but when he gets a good look, we know he’s gonna put it up and most like­ly make it. His rebound­ing is incred­i­ble. He’s got a real­ly good nose for the ball. Shot blocking’s there. So, all his instincts are there. … I think he’s going to be a big fac­tor in this series against the Lakers.”

It would’ve been a stretch to say that a month ago dur­ing the Utah series. But his ded­i­ca­tion to stay­ing on the floor — acknowl­edg­ing and address­ing his defense — is a giant devel­op­ment in Denver’s quest for a championship.

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