For the first time in his career, Otto Porter played significant minutes in the postseason. Last season, Porter averaged 2 minutes per game in 3 games played in the playoffs, and only managed to score 2 points. Yesterday, Porter continued to show how he has grown as a player, and how he will be ready to be a big part of the Washington franchise once his time comes. Porter scored 5 points, grabbed 5 rebounds, recorded 2 steals, and assisted on another basket in 33 minutes of play.
Porter logged a lot of minutes to the fact that Washington had to match up with the small ball lineup Toronto was sending out. Nene moved to the center position and Paul Pierce moved to the power forward position, which gave Porter and opportunity to log minutes at small forward.
There has been a lot of talk throughout the season about Pierce potentially playing power forward like he did in Brooklyn to stretch out the floor, but Randy Wittman decided to keep that in his back pocket. When time came to pull it out, he tried and it worked, and Otto benefited from the opportunity given to him. Otto needs to be ready to play at ay given time now that Randy Wittman sees the small lineup works.