The good news: Michael Porter Jr. continued his run of high-scoring games with 23 points in a double-overtime Nuggets win over the Jazz.
The bad news: Michael Porter Jr. was 7-of-18 from the field, 1-of-8 from three, and spent significant chunks of the game not scoring any points. The entire first half elapsed without him recording a field goal. This is jarring because we all had, quite quickly, become used to MPJ being a consistent scoring threat every moment he was on the court. I know it’s his rookie season and rookies are supposed to be inconsistent, but that axiom goes out the window when the rookie in question is a scoring beat on the caliber of MPJ.
I blame Jamal Murray. Everything was JUST FINE until Jamal Murray returned to the lineup. Basketball-reference’s lineup data seems to indicate that MPJ was at his best when paired with Jamal Murray, but I don’t like that stat. That stat is for stupid people. The stat for smart people is that MPJ played well in the bubble games without Murray and now that Murray is back, MPJ had a game that maybe wasn’t so good.
It’s science, people.