Bobby Portis really statpadded at the end of this game to get a thirty-burger. It’s not really his fault that his coach decided to play him during trash time, but I’m just saying. He took the opportunity playing against the Heat’s bench unit to get buckets (23 points worth of buckets) without pressure. He did take the Knicks’ thirty-point deficit and it turn it into only a 15-point deficit, so if he had been given more time to statpad, it wouldn’t have been statpadding anymore. It would have been the furious comeback of a player who’s determined to not allow his team to lose even though they couldn’t hit a shot to save their collective lives.
Am I foolish for thinking that Portis was going to me a more featured part of the Knicks’ offense this year? Sure, Julius Randle plays his position and is going to take up a lot of the minutes with his turnovers and awkward handles, but there’s still room for Portis to play his game. There’s a reason why the Knicks signed him in the first place, and it wasn’t to tank more effectively. It was so that Portis could help win games with his scoring and his bugged-out eyes which intimidate opposing defenses.
If Portis is this good at statpadding, I see no reason why you couldn’t play him thirty MPG per game as the primary weapon off the bench and have him statpad the whole time like a taller version of Lou Williams. If Portis did it well enough, Knicks games would be more competitive and the statpadding would be more acceptable. Statpadding when the score is close is actually just called “being a scorer” and good scorers do it all the time. Why can’t Portis be that type of good scorer? Why has being on the Knicks ruined his career?