For a minute Sunday night, Warriors forward Otto Porter Jr. was a one-man show.
In the second quarter of the 120-107 win over the Houston Rockets, Porter hit three straight 3-pointers, grabbed a rebound and recorded a steal in the matter of just 40 seconds to ignite the Dubs bench.
Draymond Green and Juan Toscano-Anderson gave 21-year-old Rockets guard Kevin Porter Jr. an ear full after he bit on a Porter fake in front of the Warriors bench. Green couldn’t contain himself after the second three, when Porter bit again on another pump fake. By the third 3-pointer, Steph Curry was hopping on the baseline and the other Warriors teammates gleefully picked Porter off the ground.
Nine games into the season, it has to be considered Porter’s welcome-to-the-Warriors moment. The veteran finished with a season-high 15 points and matched his season high with nine rebounds while pushing his 3-point percentage to 39.1 (9-for-23) on the season.
The Warriors took a flier on Porter, who only played in 42 games the past two seasons due to foot and back issues. But the 28-year-old looks like a bargain playing on his veteran minimum deal.
“It's all the hard work into making sure my body was good," Porter told Tim Roye after the game on 95.7 The Game. "Like you said, I had a rough two years. Coming here with a great opportunity, great coaching staff and teammates, I was able to work on my body and put it all together."
In the third quarter, fellow free-agent veteran-minimum signee Nemanja Bjelica got into the act, stroking three 3-pointers during a game-clinching 20-3 run. For the season, “Beli” is shooting 55.6 percent (10-of-18) from 3-point land.
“Otto and Beli have just given us a totally different dimension than really anything we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Kerr said. “Just having two bigs that can shoot threes like that really opens up the floor.”
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The combination of Porter, Bjelica, Andre Iguodala and backup point guard Gary Payton II are getting minutes that used to belong to players like Kelly Oubre Jr., Brad Wanamaker and Eric Paschall last year.
Oubre was explosive but couldn’t do much to create his own shot or be a reliable shooter. Wanamaker was a dud on offense. Paschall could score and be a physical presence but was pretty limited in his repertoire.
With Porter and Bjelica, the ball continues to move and they demand attention out on the perimeter. Considering they often lineup as the power forward and center, this often leads to some favorable defensive matchups or switches that put Curry on big men. Last season, the opposing defenses could take something of a breather against other Warriors and focus all their efforts on Steph.
The Warriors don’t need Curry to drop 30 points a game any more for a chance to win. He scored 20 and Jordan Poole scored a team-high 25. But it’s the bench players like Porter, Bjelica and Payton (team-high plus-27 in 20 minutes) that have Kerr so excited this year. And he says it’s all connected.
“To me -- Beli and Otto and Andre -- the addition of those guys has made the game much more playable for Gary in terms of putting him into combinations that fit,” Kerr said.
The Warriors' 8-1 record is tops in the NBA.
