I Los Angeles Lakers shortened the series against the Denver Nuggets to 3-1, avoiding the sweep in Game-4 and rekindling the flame of hope in the fans. Before the game, many had turned their noses up at seeing among the opponents Michael Porter Jr. Doing warm-ups without shoes, but wearing flip-flops. Some had interpreted it as disrespect on MPJ’s part, a symbol of how much the Nuggets by now, having reached 10 straight wins against LA, wanted to belittle the Lakers.
In the end as mentioned the Lakers won, Porter Jr finished with 27 points and 11 rebounds and in the post-game clarified the flip-flop incident. The Nuggets player said he expected the controversy, but that he could not help but take the court in flip-flops because he had no shoes.
“We don’t want to get the message across that we underestimate our opponents, I hope that wasn’t understood. We simply did not have shoes. I didn’t have my warm-up shoes, I think the bus on which my shoes were loaded was the last one to arrive. I think there was some confusion, so I had to warm up in flip-flops. They told us that we could either skip the warm-up or do it in flip-flops, I knew people would be a bit controversial but the motivation is just that someone forgot to put my shoes on the correct bus.” Michael Porter Jr. explained. The news was also confirmed by journalist Harrison Wind. Porter Jr was not, however, the only one on the Nuggets who did not have shoes: Peyton Watson, for example, also had flip-flops.
Lakers and Nuggets will be back on the court in Denver in a couple of days, the Italian night between Monday and Tuesday.