INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Cavs legend Brad Daugherty beamed with pride from the broadcast booth watching Cavs reserve guard Craig Porter Jr. do something that only Daugherty \u2014 and two other franchise greats \u2014 had done before. <\/p>\n
In Cleveland\u2019s 120-116 come-from-behind win against the undermanned and futile Pacers<\/a>, the 6-foot-1 Porter tallied eight points, nine rebounds, nine assists, three blocks and two steals in 28 impactful minutes off the bench \u2014 just the fourth Cavalier ever with that diverse stat line. <\/p>\n Daugherty. Larry Nance. LeBron James. Porter. <\/p>\n Porter is the outlier, someone who, upon first glance, doesn\u2019t seem to belong on an exclusive list of physical giants. <\/p>\n His game says otherwise. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s the actual definition of a sneaky athlete,\u201d said Sam Merrill who interrupted Porter\u2019s postgame session with reporters to offer the widely used backhanded compliment. \u201cReal sneaky.\u201d<\/p>\n Porter smiled. And agreed. <\/p>\n \u201cSam said it,\u201d Porter explained. \u201cI\u2019m contesting at a high rate, so it\u2019s just catching guys off guard. It\u2019s almost like I come out of nowhere. You can\u2019t really do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n BETTING: The Cavs are listed at +650 to win the Eastern Conference this year over on DraftKings<\/a>. Our complete DraftKings Sportsbook review<\/a> provides a guide on how to register and use their site. For a closer look at how to bet on futures, check out our expert futures betting<\/a> guide.<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly what happened late in the fourth quarter against the unsuspecting Pacers \u2014 part of the Cavaliers\u2019 rally that allowed them to crawl out of a one-time nine-point hole.<\/p>\n With Indiana down by six and about two minutes remaining, Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard forced a switch, drove past Darius Garland and had an open lane to the basket \u2014 or so he thought. But as Nembhard gathered and went up for a left-handed layup, Porter came from the opposite side, springboarded off the hardwood, extended his arms and blocked the shot. <\/p>\n Porter\u2019s teammates jubilantly hopped off the bench. The shocked Pacers wanted a foul \u2014 or goaltend. Something. Anything. They couldn\u2019t believe Porter soared across the paint like Victor Wembanyama and turned Nembhard away so forcibly. <\/p>\n \u201cJust having a knack for being a help defender, a lot of times I can read those plays ahead of time,\u201d Porter said. \u201cI saw him kind of get in the lane and I knew he would try to draw a foul or drive on D.G., so I just timed it up perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n That was Porter\u2019s third block of the game. One more than reigning Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley. Two more than Pacers center Jay Huff, one of the NBA\u2019s swat leaders. Almost the same number as Indiana\u2019s entire roster. <\/p>\n Porter now has at least one rejection in the last five games \u2014 a stretch that coincides with Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson giving Porter a more prominent and consistent role in the rotation, replacing ineffective Lonzo Ball. For the season, Porter has the second most blocks of anyone on the roster, trailing just Mobley, despite ranking ninth in total minutes. <\/p>\n Given Porter\u2019s recent all-around impact, that workload will likely continue to increase. <\/p>\n \u201cCoach gave him an opportunity and he\u2019s taking advantage of it,\u201d said Garland who scored a game-high 29 points, including 14 in the turnaround fourth quarter. \u201cHe\u2019s really playing with a lot of spirit and joy and confidence. Most importantly, it\u2019s the confidence because we all believe in him out there, so just go out here and just do him. Shows how much he means to us as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday night, Porter earned eight fourth-quarter minutes. He even closed the game, being subbed back in for De\u2019Andre Hunter with 4:33 remaining \u2014 a disputed move that paid immediate dividends, as Porter corralled an offensive rebound and tossed a pass, from the ground, to Jarrett Allen for a layup that increased Cleveland\u2019s lead to five points. <\/p>\n An Indiana native with 15 people in attendance, Porter\u2019s four-minute stint at the end of the fourth also included two more boards, a made free throw and that trademark rejection \u2014 the exclamation point on his scintillating homecoming. <\/p>\n \u201cHe just makes all these hustle plays and energy plays,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cWe needed someone to give us a little more impetus, a little more push to get us over the hump. Give our assistants a lot of credit. They were pushing to get C.P. back in the game. I finally listened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe looked like me out there,\u201d Mobley added with a grin. \u201cWhen he first came into the league, I heard he was leading his conference in blocks and rebounds, so I knew he had that knack. I could tell by how he moved, how he times things. It\u2019s his timing. And he\u2019s athletic. People don\u2019t think he\u2019s athletic. Can get up there.\u201d<\/p>\n Mobley is right. Blocking shots isn\u2019t new territory for Porter. It\u2019s part of his makeup, part of the appeal three years ago when the Cavs quickly scooped him up as an undrafted free agent.<\/p>\n Despite being a guard, Porter led Wichita State in blocks during his senior year. This season, only one NBA guard 6-foot-4 or under has more blocks than Porter. It\u2019s Philadelphia All-Star Tyrese Maxey who has eight more in about 700 extra minutes. At this point, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to label Porter the league\u2019s best shot-blocking guard. <\/p>\n \u201cPlaying basketball when I was younger, I was always a lot smaller than everyone, so I had to find like little knacks or whatever to try and just get around that,\u201d Porter said recently. \u201cBut I feel like just overall timing and anticipating where people will be before they\u2019re there is a big part of it. Probably about middle school is when that started.\u201d<\/p>\n Even with that early success, it wasn\u2019t until his junior year in high school when Porter realized he could be a dynamic and effective shot-blocker. <\/p>\n \u201cI had like six or seven blocks in a game and I was like, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s normal,\u201d Porter said. <\/p>\n Shortly before tipoff Tuesday, Porter\u2019s uptick in blocks was one of the central topics. As he joked with teammates about it, Dean Wade popped up from his phone a couple lockers over and called Porter the team\u2019s small-ball center \u2014 a nod to the natural propensity to compile stats typically reserved for bigs. <\/p>\n About four hours later, no one was laughing. Certainly not Indiana. <\/p>\n While Porter probably seems like an outlier because of his size compared to those others<\/p>\n Elite company. The others on that list aren\u2019t surprising. They all possessed multifaceted skillsets <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Cavs legend Brad Daugherty beamed with pride from the broadcast booth watching Cavs reserve guard Craig…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-393971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}