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Donovan Mitchell: All-NBA BEST Team
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Pierre Pan
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The entire Fedor article :
apple.news
DENVER — Given everything else that transpired over these last 31 days, Sunday’s no-show was, in many ways, a fitting capper to an ugly month.
The Cavs — a team that entered the season with a belief that they could do something special — got outclassed by the reigning champion Denver Nuggets, 130-101.
And short-handed Denver didn’t even have second-leading scorer Jamal Murray.
“We’ve got to play better,” star guard Donovan Mitchell said following the loss. “No other excuse to it. We’ve got to play better. No other way around it. It’s on all of us. Starts with me. But we have to play better. Simply put. We’ve shown we can do it and that’s what is frustrating. Not like we don’t have the capability to do it. That’s a championship-level team without their second-best player. Credit to them. They executed well and they have guys who have won rings and been there, but if we want to be that, a 29-point loss ain’t it.”
Mitchell isn’t typically so grim. Even during an uneven start to the season, with the Cavs needing about three weeks to creep over the .500 mark, Mitchell remained optimistic, repeatedly pointing to the calendar and expressing confidence that they would turn it around. He said if the Cavs were still stumbling with the playoffs approaching, it would be troublesome.
Well, here they are.
Weeks away from the postseason. Coming off their worst month. A glut of unanswered questions. Countless red flags. An unprecedented midseason surge that suddenly feels more like a mirage.
“I told you at the beginning of the season, if we had these struggles at this point then it’s a problem,” Mitchell said, referencing an early-November conversation in Oklahoma City after Cleveland dropped to 3-5. “It can’t happen. I can say all this now. We have to find a way to figure it out. It’s not going to linger after tonight. Have to watch the film and get back to what we do. But it can’t happen. We can all point to s---. It’s April. It’s (expletive) April. We’ve got to figure it out. And we will.”
Sunday was Cleveland’s 13th double-digit loss this season. Nearly half of those were in March — a hellish month in which the Cavs went just 7-10. Suddenly, they are clinging to the third spot in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks are a half game back while upstart Orlando is only a game and a half behind.
For now, forget the standings. The Cavs have more pressing matters. Mitchell’s health is at the top of that lengthy list.
Sunday was his second game back following a two-week absence caused by both a nasal fracture that has him wearing a black protective mask and a still-bothersome knee that not only required a platelet-rich-plasma ejection but has led to him limping across the finish line.
Mitchell isn’t himself. He is clearly laboring. At this point, it’s fair to wonder whether he will get back to the MVP form he showed earlier this season, the standard of play the Cavs need to remain competitive.
“I’m working back into it. That’s natural. I’m not worried about it. Just continue to build the reps and build the mental confidence in it,” Mitchell said when asked if he was playing at less than full strength. “At the end of the day I’m fine. I have to play better. We all have to play better. I’m not going to sit here and point to that. Everybody else is going to look at it like that. But it’s April. Gotta be better.”
When asked by cleveland.com whether it would be more beneficial to play through the knee issue and rebuild strength with on-court reps or take extra time to rest and recover, Mitchell smirked before sidestepping the question.
“I’ve got to be better,” he reiterated.
Mitchell’s facial expression said it all. Time is running out. He’s trying to balance health and rhythm. He clearly needs more recovery time. But meaningful game reps are of the utmost importance as well. Plus, the free-falling Cavs can’t afford to drop much further in the standings.
There’s not an easy answer.
“It’s a conversation we will have to have,” Bickerstaff said when asked about the possibility of periodically sitting Mitchell over the final few weeks. “It’s a tough balance. I know he wants to play and be out there with his teammates and we just have to work around it to figure out both sides of it so he’s getting the best and the team is getting the best as well. Those are conversations we will have. But we have not had any kind of conversations about him sitting out at this point.”
Since the All-Star break — a stretch coinciding with Mitchell being available for just over 200 total minutes — the Cavs rank 21st in offensive rating, 22nd in defensive rating and 23rd in net rating.
“You have to put stock into it,” Jarrett Allen said of those rankings. “That’s quite a few games. Can’t call them all bluffs. This is the team we are and the players we have so we just have to figure out a way to get back to where we were.”
Lacking the usual explosiveness, burst, change of direction and lift, Mitchell is averaging just 16.9 points on 37.1% from the field and 42.9% from 3-point range to go with 5.0 assists and 3.7 rebounds. In these seven atypical games, Mitchell has hit the 20-point mark just once, something he was doing routinely over the first few months.
He still isn’t beating defenders off the dribble. He can’t consistently get into the paint — and is struggling to finish around the rim in the rare instances when he does. He isn’t creating the usual separation on his step-back jumpers. Many of his attempts are coming up short.
In the season’s second half, 56 of Mitchell’s 97 attempts are from 3-point range. That’s around 58% of his total shots. In the first half that number was nearly 44%. He has taken just 12 total shots inside the restricted area. Only made four of them. Six have been blocked.
It all points to a limited star. Mitchell’s ineffectiveness has played a key role in Cleveland’s unsteady month, wrapping up a depleted March Sunday without winning back-to-back games.
“All those things are circumstantial,” Bickerstaff explained. “You go through a stretch when four of your top eight or nine players are out and it’s hard to be at your best. I give the guys credit who were out there and continued to fight and did the right things that we needed to do. But health is so important in our business. Out aim in these last seven or eight games is to get healthy. We know what we are capable of. We know what our guys are capable of as individuals and as a team.”
Max Strus, who missed a large chunk of March, is back, creating havoc with his non-stop offensive movement. Evan Mobley hasn’t had any trouble getting reacclimated following an ankle sprain that cause a nine-game absence. While Cleveland is still without injured do-it-all forward Dean Wade because of a sprained knee and rugged defensive stopped Isaac Okoro didn’t play Sunday because of a sore big toe, Mitchell is the Cavs’ barometer.
When he’s great, so are they. When he’s not, well ...
There are only a handful of games left for the Cavs — and Mitchell — to get right. Is that enough time or should there be a level of concern as the calendar flips to April?
“I would say it’s more so of a mindset of let’s figure it out as opposed to concern,” Mitchell said. “I think concern breeds anxiety and stress. I don’t think we are at that point. I don’t want to go like, ‘Oh we’re panicking.’ We’re not there. I think it’s just we have to figure it out and we have the capability to do it. I have the utmost confidence in our group and everybody to do that.”
‘Gotta be better’: Donovan Mitchell sounds off after Cavs’ latest blowout loss — cleveland.com
DENVER — Given everything else that transpired over these last 31 days, Sunday’s no-show was, in many ways, a fitting capper to an ugly month.
DENVER — Given everything else that transpired over these last 31 days, Sunday’s no-show was, in many ways, a fitting capper to an ugly month.
The Cavs — a team that entered the season with a belief that they could do something special — got outclassed by the reigning champion Denver Nuggets, 130-101.
And short-handed Denver didn’t even have second-leading scorer Jamal Murray.
“We’ve got to play better,” star guard Donovan Mitchell said following the loss. “No other excuse to it. We’ve got to play better. No other way around it. It’s on all of us. Starts with me. But we have to play better. Simply put. We’ve shown we can do it and that’s what is frustrating. Not like we don’t have the capability to do it. That’s a championship-level team without their second-best player. Credit to them. They executed well and they have guys who have won rings and been there, but if we want to be that, a 29-point loss ain’t it.”
Mitchell isn’t typically so grim. Even during an uneven start to the season, with the Cavs needing about three weeks to creep over the .500 mark, Mitchell remained optimistic, repeatedly pointing to the calendar and expressing confidence that they would turn it around. He said if the Cavs were still stumbling with the playoffs approaching, it would be troublesome.
Well, here they are.
Weeks away from the postseason. Coming off their worst month. A glut of unanswered questions. Countless red flags. An unprecedented midseason surge that suddenly feels more like a mirage.
“I told you at the beginning of the season, if we had these struggles at this point then it’s a problem,” Mitchell said, referencing an early-November conversation in Oklahoma City after Cleveland dropped to 3-5. “It can’t happen. I can say all this now. We have to find a way to figure it out. It’s not going to linger after tonight. Have to watch the film and get back to what we do. But it can’t happen. We can all point to s---. It’s April. It’s (expletive) April. We’ve got to figure it out. And we will.”
Sunday was Cleveland’s 13th double-digit loss this season. Nearly half of those were in March — a hellish month in which the Cavs went just 7-10. Suddenly, they are clinging to the third spot in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks are a half game back while upstart Orlando is only a game and a half behind.
For now, forget the standings. The Cavs have more pressing matters. Mitchell’s health is at the top of that lengthy list.
Sunday was his second game back following a two-week absence caused by both a nasal fracture that has him wearing a black protective mask and a still-bothersome knee that not only required a platelet-rich-plasma ejection but has led to him limping across the finish line.
Mitchell isn’t himself. He is clearly laboring. At this point, it’s fair to wonder whether he will get back to the MVP form he showed earlier this season, the standard of play the Cavs need to remain competitive.
“I’m working back into it. That’s natural. I’m not worried about it. Just continue to build the reps and build the mental confidence in it,” Mitchell said when asked if he was playing at less than full strength. “At the end of the day I’m fine. I have to play better. We all have to play better. I’m not going to sit here and point to that. Everybody else is going to look at it like that. But it’s April. Gotta be better.”
When asked by cleveland.com whether it would be more beneficial to play through the knee issue and rebuild strength with on-court reps or take extra time to rest and recover, Mitchell smirked before sidestepping the question.
“I’ve got to be better,” he reiterated.
Mitchell’s facial expression said it all. Time is running out. He’s trying to balance health and rhythm. He clearly needs more recovery time. But meaningful game reps are of the utmost importance as well. Plus, the free-falling Cavs can’t afford to drop much further in the standings.
There’s not an easy answer.
“It’s a conversation we will have to have,” Bickerstaff said when asked about the possibility of periodically sitting Mitchell over the final few weeks. “It’s a tough balance. I know he wants to play and be out there with his teammates and we just have to work around it to figure out both sides of it so he’s getting the best and the team is getting the best as well. Those are conversations we will have. But we have not had any kind of conversations about him sitting out at this point.”
Since the All-Star break — a stretch coinciding with Mitchell being available for just over 200 total minutes — the Cavs rank 21st in offensive rating, 22nd in defensive rating and 23rd in net rating.
“You have to put stock into it,” Jarrett Allen said of those rankings. “That’s quite a few games. Can’t call them all bluffs. This is the team we are and the players we have so we just have to figure out a way to get back to where we were.”
Lacking the usual explosiveness, burst, change of direction and lift, Mitchell is averaging just 16.9 points on 37.1% from the field and 42.9% from 3-point range to go with 5.0 assists and 3.7 rebounds. In these seven atypical games, Mitchell has hit the 20-point mark just once, something he was doing routinely over the first few months.
He still isn’t beating defenders off the dribble. He can’t consistently get into the paint — and is struggling to finish around the rim in the rare instances when he does. He isn’t creating the usual separation on his step-back jumpers. Many of his attempts are coming up short.
In the season’s second half, 56 of Mitchell’s 97 attempts are from 3-point range. That’s around 58% of his total shots. In the first half that number was nearly 44%. He has taken just 12 total shots inside the restricted area. Only made four of them. Six have been blocked.
It all points to a limited star. Mitchell’s ineffectiveness has played a key role in Cleveland’s unsteady month, wrapping up a depleted March Sunday without winning back-to-back games.
“All those things are circumstantial,” Bickerstaff explained. “You go through a stretch when four of your top eight or nine players are out and it’s hard to be at your best. I give the guys credit who were out there and continued to fight and did the right things that we needed to do. But health is so important in our business. Out aim in these last seven or eight games is to get healthy. We know what we are capable of. We know what our guys are capable of as individuals and as a team.”
Max Strus, who missed a large chunk of March, is back, creating havoc with his non-stop offensive movement. Evan Mobley hasn’t had any trouble getting reacclimated following an ankle sprain that cause a nine-game absence. While Cleveland is still without injured do-it-all forward Dean Wade because of a sprained knee and rugged defensive stopped Isaac Okoro didn’t play Sunday because of a sore big toe, Mitchell is the Cavs’ barometer.
When he’s great, so are they. When he’s not, well ...
There are only a handful of games left for the Cavs — and Mitchell — to get right. Is that enough time or should there be a level of concern as the calendar flips to April?
“I would say it’s more so of a mindset of let’s figure it out as opposed to concern,” Mitchell said. “I think concern breeds anxiety and stress. I don’t think we are at that point. I don’t want to go like, ‘Oh we’re panicking.’ We’re not there. I think it’s just we have to figure it out and we have the capability to do it. I have the utmost confidence in our group and everybody to do that.”
Futuredome
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Wild season for Mitchell. Down up down. Bone bruises on the knee can take months to heal.
buzzdog
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I think his knee might be done for the season, as others have been guessing. I hope not. Hopefully it's just a combination of the nose/mask, affecting all aspects. But he hasn't been right since the all-star break.
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Will be such an organizational death nail if they re-sign him…
Has absolutely zero to do with his recent performance cause even at his very best it’s not good enough…
The team doesn’t perform around him, he doesn’t make anyone better, he’s undersized, he’s polarizing (for some reason) — he’s going to continue to physically decline (play about 60 games a season) and he’s only known the alpha role— you can’t build around him…
Even at his best I would not re-sign him…Love his game, his personality, but it’s complete fools gold….
Has absolutely zero to do with his recent performance cause even at his very best it’s not good enough…
The team doesn’t perform around him, he doesn’t make anyone better, he’s undersized, he’s polarizing (for some reason) — he’s going to continue to physically decline (play about 60 games a season) and he’s only known the alpha role— you can’t build around him…
Even at his best I would not re-sign him…Love his game, his personality, but it’s complete fools gold….
Thelastcavsfan
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See what emoni can do
Jscc
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Just what? Don has been in the NBA going on seven seasons. His teams have been to the playoffs (and will be this year) in every one of them. Including his rookie season. He was the #1 option in all of them. His #2 options prior to the Cavs have been Rodney Hood, Ricky Rubio, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Jordan Clarkson. None of that happens if any of the bolded were true.
mds
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Knell in the coffin.
Tlyons
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