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The Denver Nuggets offense sputtered on Wednesday night in the team’s 96-85 loss to the Clippers in game 4 and rookie Michael Porter Jr. is making it known that he wants coach Mike Malone to get him the ball more in the future.
While speaking to the media, Porter Jr. questioned his coach’s strategy of giving the ball solely to Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic on offense.
“To beat that team, we've gotta get more players involved.”
MPJ on wanting to get more involved on offense after Game 4 loss pic.twitter.com/iI7qRIHAeC
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 10, 2020
“I mean, that’s really up to the play calls, that’s really up to the coaches, who they want to put the ball in whose hands. We kept going to Jokic and ‘Mal, and they’re two amazing players, you can never get mad at that. But I just think to beat that team, we gotta get more players involved, we gotta move the ball a little bit better. We can’t be predictable against that team.
When asked if he felt comfortable speaking out publicly about his dissatisfaction with the play-calling, Porter doubled down on his criticism of the team’s strategy.
“If I’m gonna be out there on the floor playing a lot of minutes, I think I should voice that (concern). I’ll probably talk to the coaches, just tell them what I see being out there on the floor. Just letting them know, ‘Look, they know what we’re doing.’ Like, we gotta swing the ball. We’ve got a lot of players who can play basketball and score. We gotta get some more guys involved.”
After Porter Jr’s comments went viral, Blazers’ guard Damian Lillard chimed in and shared his two cents.
Smdh … https://t.co/uNwDxmJgQ2
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) September 10, 2020
Yes he is wrong. If you know you know and ima leave it at that https://t.co/5Ynr2GXQlP
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) September 10, 2020
A few other NBA players also reacted to MPJ’s comments.
https://t.co/lKtr5S9nwb pic.twitter.com/wcB29aO5yK
— Nikola Vucevic (@NikolaVucevic) September 10, 2020
Oh damn 😳 https://t.co/5IKWdog7ri
— Theo pinson (@tpinsonn) September 10, 2020
Porter Jr. isn’t wrong with being frustrated with the team’s offense but he should have probably voiced his concerns in private instead of calling out his coach in front of the media.
