Michael Porter Jr. didn’t want the Nuggets to go back to Los Ange­les for Game 6 of their West­ern Con­fer­ence play­off series. He said it might’ve been spooky if they did.

So on Mon­day night when Den­ver faced a third-quar­ter deficit against the Lak­ers, Porter took it upon him­self to make sure his team wasn’t prepar­ing for anoth­er plane ride.

Down by four points, Porter drove to the rim for a layup. Moments lat­er, he had the ulti­mate green light, catch­ing a pass from Niko­la Jokic and drain­ing a cor­ner 3‑pointer that cut Denver’s deficit to one.

Jamal Murray’s game-win­ning jumper secured Den­ver a spot in the sec­ond round and con­tin­ued the Nuggets’ dom­i­nance over Los Ange­les. But Porter’s impres­sive shoot­ing effort, which had been on dis­play through­out the series, helped set Mur­ray up to be the hero in the 108–106 vic­to­ry in Game 5.

“I was knock­ing down shot (after) shot. I’ve done that my whole career,” Porter said.

As Den­ver strug­gled to find offense in the first round against the Lak­ers, Porter was a mod­el of con­sis­ten­cy. He aver­aged 22.8 points per game while shoot­ing over 50% from the floor.

Against Los Ange­les in Game 5, he scored 26 points on 8‑for-12 shoot­ing. Not only was he a sniper from the 3‑point line, he attacked the rim and show­cased his entire offen­sive bag.

“Michael Porter’s offense in this series was incred­i­ble,” Nuggets head coach Michael Mal­one said. “Buck­ets were hard to come by but Michael hit some time­ly shots. And when he didn’t have his shot, he was able to get down­hill and get pres­sure on the rim.”

When­ev­er the Nuggets strug­gled or were in a tight sit­u­a­tion, they turned to Porter.

Den­ver was down by six in the first quar­ter when Porter’s 3‑pointer ignit­ed a 10–0 scor­ing run that gave the Nuggets a four-point lead at the end of the frame.

In the third quar­ter, as the Lak­ers attempt­ed to grow a three-point half­time lead, Porter scored 12 points to push Den­ver ahead. With 1:35 left in the third, Aaron Gor­don found Porter wide-open on the cor­ner, where he buried a 3‑pointer to give Den­ver a 74–69 lead.

In the fourth quar­ter when Lak­ers guard Austin Reaves scored a go-ahead bas­ket, Porter answered by knock­ing down his fifth 3‑pointer on the oth­er end.

“Every time we need­ed a big shot (or) went on a drought, he was there,” Gor­don said. “(He’s) so solid.”

The Nuggets’ two-man game of Mur­ray and Jokic has been a dri­ving force of their suc­cess. But in Denver’s quest to repeat as cham­pi­ons, it might require Porter to con­tin­ue being a microwave scorer.

Up next is a sec­ond-round series against the Tim­ber­wolves, one of the best defen­sive teams in the NBA. Porter shot 46% from the floor and 38.1% from deep in four games against Min­neso­ta dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son. His steady per­for­mance against the Lak­ers offers hope he’s ready to rise to the challenge.

“He set­tled us (down) all series long,” Gor­don said.

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