Highlights from Otto Porter’s unconventional 23 point, 13 rebound performance vs. Toronto

Otto Porter’s skills cut against the grain for the modern wing player. While he’s shown he can shoot well from the outside at points during his career, he still does his best work inside the arc. Some would say that’s a limitation, but he showed in Wednesday’s game against the Raptors that he can still have an outstanding game without catching fire from deep.

Here’s a look at Porter’s shot chart from last night, via NBA.com:

As you can see, Porter did almost all of his damage from inside the painted area where he was 10-11 on the night. What makes that even more special is that the Wizards weren’t generating a lot of three point opportunities to space the floor and make it easy for Porter to get to the rim. It took a lot of hard, but efficient work from Porter to create his inside scoring opportunities.

In the highlights below, you’ll see Porter was just great about putting himself in the right position to grab rebounds, make smart cuts to the basket, and get ahead of the pack for transition buckets.

Porter’s performance on Wednesday night was a perfect example of what makes him a unique asset in the NBA. If most other perimeter players only got to take two shots outside the paint, they wouldn’t make much of an impact on the game. Porter not only overcame that challenge, but thrived in spite of it.

No one is advocating for Porter to abandon shooting threes, especially given the team’s struggles from outside this season. But since that the team is struggling from deep, it makes his ability to score effectively inside that much more important.

For better or worse, Otto Porter does not fit the modern mold for a ‘3 & D’ wing player. At a time when Scott Brooks could have tried to force him into a more traditional role, he opted to go the other way and let Porter be himself on the floor. So far, it’s been paying big dividends for the Wizards.