I feel like what’s happening right now with Marquese Chriss is sort of like what happened with Kenneth Faried. You know the story: talented/semi-flawed yet marginalized bigman languishing on a team that doesn’t really want him. After many months of nothing besides a nice collection of ass splinters from sitting on the bench for so long, he gets traded to a team that desires him. He starts getting minutes, he starts producing, and everyone lives happily ever after, except for LeBron.
Chriss, somehow, was super clutch tonight for the Cavaliers. I don’t know if he’s EVER been clutch before in his life, not even one time. He eventually fouled out, preventing him from being clutch enough to make the Cavs win the game, but at the end of the fourth quarter and in some of the overtimes, he was getting hella buckets. Normally I would criticize this performance for occurring in a triple-overtime game, but since Chriss fouled out in only 27 minutes, I won’t. He’s earned it.
Now, is all this as sustainable as Faried’s production in Houston? Heck no. Chriss won’t keep shooting threes like he is right now, and he doesn’t have the luxury of getting free dunks all the time like Faried does. Although, if they keep running this tandem of him and Matthew Dellavedova, maybe there will be free dunks after all. We all know how good Tristan Thompson looked receiving lobs from Delly, and Chriss can jump way higher and dunk (or attempt to dunk) way more things than the mostly landbound Thompson.