Michael Porter Jr. saved his harsh­est words for the Nuggets after Game 4. But the kid got in the last word of Game 5. And it spoke volumes.

“Every­thing I said, I stand by what I say,” said Porter, whose sev­en points over the game’s final 71 sec­onds helped Den­ver hold on for a 111–105 win Fri­day night in their West­ern Con­fer­ence semi­fi­nal series against the Los Ange­les Clip­pers. “And I didn’t mean it in any type of dis­re­spect­ful way or any­thing like that. (My) coach­es and team­mates, they all know that.”

After being held score­less for 46 min­utes Fri­day, MPJ net­ted sev­en of Denver’s final nine points.

His 3‑pointer with 1:11 left was his biggest shot, push­ing the Nuggets’ ten­u­ous 2‑point lead up to 105–100. And his block of Clip­pers cen­ter Ivi­ca Zubac with 36 sec­onds to go fired up a team that had trailed by as many as 16 points.

“He was locked in,” said Den­ver team­mate Jamal Mur­ray, who scored 26 points. “And it showed when it mattered.”

Porter’s hero­ics helped Den­ver force a Game 6 on Sun­day and helped move the Nuggets to 4–0 this post­sea­son when fac­ing a win-or-go-home elim­i­na­tion game.

The franchise’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft raised eye­brows — and drew some social media fire — after his com­ments fol­low­ing the Nuggets’ loss in Game 4, a con­test in which he scored 15 points in the first half, but none after the break.

“I just didn’t touch the ball,” Porter said at the time. “(The Clip­pers) didn’t do any­thing different.”

It wasn’t the first time the 6‑foot-10 for­ward gave his hon­est, unfil­tered opin­ion on — well, pick your sub­ject.

But the tim­ing and forum for this take alleged­ly didn’t sit well with the Nuggets coach­ing staff or vet­er­an team­mates, who, accord­ing to TNT side­line reporter Jared Green­berg, would’ve pre­ferred the con­cerns were relayed in the lock­er room and not in front of a bunch of micro­phones. Porter man­aged to have an even big­ger say in Game 5. And it’s giv­en the Nuggets new life in what had been a fair­ly lop­sided series.

“That (shot) says a lot,” said Nuggets pow­er for­ward Paul Mill­sap, whose 14 third-quar­ter points helped Den­ver hang around. “Mike’s a very con­fi­dent bas­ket­ball play­er. I mean, (when) he gets the oppor­tu­ni­ty, he wants to show his tal­ent … so it’s up to us, the guys around him, to help him (get) bet­ter. And we will.”