As soon as he checked in, Enes Kanter made an immediate impact on this game, getting two buckets in his first minute of action. When I witnessed it, the first thought spontaneously generated by my tangled mass of neurons and axons that could charitably be called a “brain” was “Daniel Theis is not going to get to play again this game. Maybe ever.”
Say what you will about Kanter, and there are a lot of things to say about him for sure, but he knows how to accumulate buckets. Over 3000 of them in his career.
Theis is not the same kind of bucket-accumulator. Not like he’s a total slouch in that facet of the game, far from it. But it’s not the only reason for his existence as with many other players. He plays defense. Not only does he play defense, he WANTS to play defense. He enjoys it. He wants to play hard, he wants to BANG. Not the Mike Breen kind of BANG, not the intimate kind of BANG, the BANGING kind of BANG. HARD BANG.
I hope he’s mentoring Tacko Fall in the art of playing bigger than your actual height. If Theis can play like he’s the biggest guy on the court even when he’s not, imagine Fall doing the same. Holy Moly Jim-Bob Boly.