INDIANAPOLIS — Cavs legend Brad Daugherty beamed with pride from the broadcast booth watching Cavs reserve guard Craig Porter Jr. do something that only Daugherty — and two other franchise greats — had done before.
In [Cleveland’s 120-116 come-from-behind win against the undermanned and futile Pacers](https://www.cleveland.com/cavs/2026/01/darius-garland-helps-cavs-rally-for-120-116-win-over-floundering-pacers.html), the 6-foot-1 Porter tallied eight points, nine rebounds, nine assists, three blocks and two steals in 28 impactful minutes off the bench — just the fourth Cavalier ever with that diverse stat line.
Daugherty. Larry Nance. LeBron James. Porter.
Porter is the outlier, someone who, upon first glance, doesn’t seem to belong on an exclusive list of physical giants.
His game says otherwise.
“He’s the actual definition of a sneaky athlete,” said Sam Merrill who interrupted Porter’s postgame session with reporters to offer the widely used backhanded compliment. “Real sneaky.”
Porter smiled. And agreed.
“Sam said it,” Porter explained. “I’m contesting at a high rate, so it’s just catching guys off guard. It’s almost like I come out of nowhere. You can’t really do anything.”
That’s exactly what happened late in the fourth quarter against the unsuspecting Pacers — part of the Cavaliers’ latest rally that allowed them to crawl out of a one-time nine-point deficit.
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 — 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.
Porter’s teammates jubilantly hopped off the bench. The shocked Pacers wanted a foul — or goaltend. Something. Anything. They couldn’t believe Porter soared across the paint like Victor Wembanyama and turned Nembhard away so forcibly.
“Just having a knack for being a help defender, a lot of times I can read those plays ahead of time,” Porter said. “I 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.”
That was Porter’s 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’s swat leaders. Almost the same number as Indiana’s entire roster.
Porter now has at least one rejection in the last five games — a stretch that coincides with Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson giving Porter a more prominent and consistent role in the rotation, replacing the ineffective Lonzo Ball. For the season, bouncy Porter has the second most blocks of anyone on the roster, trailing just Mobley, despite ranking ninth in total minutes.
Although given Porter’s recent all-around impact, that workload will likely continue to increase.
“Coach gave him an opportunity and he’s taking advantage of it,” said Darius Garland who scored a game-high 29 points, including 14 in the turnaround fourth quarter. “He’s really playing with a lot of spirit and joy and confidence. Most importantly, it’s 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.”
On Tuesday night, Porter earned eight fourth-quarter minutes. He even closed the game, being subbed back in for De’Andre Hunter with 4:33 remaining — 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’s lead to five points.
An Indiana native with 15 people in attendance, Porter’s four-minute stint late in the game also included two more boards, a made free throw and that trademark rejection -- an exclamation point on his scintillating homecoming.
“He just makes all these hustle plays and energy plays,” Atkinson said. “We 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 get C.P. back in the game. I finally listened to them.”
“He looked like me out there,” Mobley added with a grin after Tuesday’s win. “When 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’s his timing. And he’s athletic. People don’t think he’s athletic. Can get up there.”
Mobley is right. Blocking shots isn’t new territory for Porter. It’s part of his makeup, part of the appeal three years ago when the Cavs quickly scooped him up as an undrafted free agent.
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’s Philadelphia All-Star Tyrese Maxey who has eight more in about 700 extra minutes. Probably not a stretch to label Porter the league’s best shot-blocking guard.
“Playing 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,” Porter said recently. “But I feel like just overall timing and anticipating where people will be before they’re there is a big part of it. Probably about middle school is when that started.”
Even with that early success, it wasn’t until his junior year in high school when Porter realized he could be a dynamic and effective shot-blocker.
“I had like six or seven blocks in a game and I was like, I don’t think that’s normal,” Porter said.
Shortly before tipoff Tuesday, Porter’s 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’s small-ball center — a nod to the natural propensity to compile stats typically reserved for bigs.
About four hours later, no one was laughing. Certainly not Indiana.
While Porter probably seems like an outlier because of his size compared to those others
Elite company. The others on that list aren’t surprising. They all possessed multifaceted skillsets