The Denver Nuggets need more consistency out of MPJ to win another title

The Denver Nuggets are coming off a four game road trip in which the team went 2-2, putting up two excellent performances against the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons and two sub-par performances against the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics. Both the losses were on national television, magnifying the underlying issues with this Nuggets team even more.

One of the issues seen in those two games was the inconsistency of Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr., who shot 19-for-31 (61.3%) in the victories this past week and just 8-for-31 (25.8%) in the losses. His inability to generate offense at certain times and inconsistency on a nightly basis is an issue for a Nuggets team that doesn’t have the same depth and firepower it did in 2023.

Yes, Porter has had some fantastic performances this year, including his stretch of three-consecutive 30-point games in early February. His 18.5 points per game are his highest average since the 2020-21 (19.0 PPG) season, and he has been available for the Nuggets on a consistent basis, playing in 58 of the Nuggets 62 games this season. However, those 30-point performances, along with some of his other best outings of the season, came against some of the NBA’s worst teams.

Against teams in the league who are at the top of each conference and trying to compete for an NBA Championship, Porter has not been himself scoring-wise, and the Nuggets have suffered.

MPJ vs top teams in the NBA this season:

BOS- 10 pts 3/9
MIL- 12 pts 5/22
NYK- 9 pts 3/8
BOS- 15 pts, 5/13
CLE- 18 pts, 6/11
CLE- 24 pts, 8/15
OKC- 24 pts, 7/16
OKC- 15 pts, 5/17
MEM- 10 pts, 4/12
MEM- 24 pts, 11/21
NYK- 18 pts, 7/17

16.3 PPG on 39.2% shooting pic.twitter.com/u9eEmtIXaj

— SportShorts (@den_shorts) March 2, 2025

This is a reoccurring theme from season to season. Last year, Porter shot 8-for-31 in the final three games of the Western Conference Semifinals in which the Nuggets lost in seven games to the Minnesota Timberwolves. He scored 10 or more points in just two of the seven games.

In 2023, Porter shot just 32.8% from the field in the NBA Finals, averaging under 10 points per game. The Nuggets’ presumed best shooter made just four three-pointers in five games.

Porter is usually on the court for Denver in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, the dreaded non-Jokic minutes for Nuggets fans. If Porter can’t generate enough consistency when Jokic is on the bench, the Nuggets will get dominated in those minutes every single night like they did against the Bucks and the Celtics.

The theme here is that he isn’t himself when the lights are the brightest. Against title contenders, the physicality is ramped up, open shots become harder to come by, and the teams who come out on top get good shooting from their role players. With there only being 20 games left in the 2024-25 NBA season, each game will be more physical than the last. Denver doesn’t have the personnel to pick up his slack in a playoff series like it did two years ago. The Nuggets needs Porter to play like a max-contract player when the stakes are the highest if they want to win another title.

The Nuggets have another difficult four-game stretch next week, playing the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder twice, the Timberwolves and the No. 2 Los Angeles Lakers in a six-day span. Porter will need to step up in that stretch to keep the Nuggets from losing more marquee matchups on national TV and sliding in the standings.