Donovan Mitchell confident Cavs will improve for playoffs
CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell didn’t attempt to hide how a playoff series between the Cavaliers and New York Knicks would hit him from a sentimental standpoint.
The native of Elmsford, New York, and trade target of the Knicks before the Cavs pulled off a blockbuster deal with the Utah Jazz in September said the matchup would be a “full circle” moment.
“What kid wouldn’t want to grow up and play against his hometown team in the playoffs?” Mitchell said during a postgame news conference at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
“It’s something that’s really special and near and dear to me being able to play in a playoff game in front of my friends and family, [facing] a team that I grew up watching, against a guy who’s an assistant coach over there who kind of basically taught me everything I know.”
Yet Mitchell’s likely postseason reunion with Knicks assistant Johnnie Bryant, who guided the All-Star guard in Utah, will be anything but a dream scenario from a Cleveland perspective unless the Cavaliers process Friday night’s 130-116 loss the right way and use it as a wake-up call.
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Mitchell scored 23 of his team-high 42 points in the first quarter, and the Cavs fired off a regular-season franchise record 47 points in the opening quarter. With his 11th 40-point game since arriving in Cleveland, Mitchell surpassed LeBron James (10 in 2005-06) for the most 40-point outings in a single season in Cavs history.
However, Cleveland failed to match the intensity and physical nature of its opponent in what is set up to be a preview of a first-round postseason series between the Eastern Conference’s fourth-place Cavs (48-30) and fifth-place Knicks (45-33).
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The Cleveland defense struggled and was shredded by Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, who finished with a career-high 48 points to go along with nine assists. The Cavs were dominated in rebounding and wound up with a 48-33 disadvantage, including 16-3 on the offensive end.
The Knicks were without All-Star power forward Julius Randle (sprained ankle), and the Cavs were missing two starters, center Jarrett Allen (strained groin) and small forward Isaac Okoro (knee soreness).
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But the bottom line is the Knicks were tougher and more aggressive, leaving the Cavs without excuses.
“I just think the refs started calling it like it was a playoff game,” Mitchell said. “… It opened some guys’ eyes, I think, to the level of physicality.”
A Cavs win would have clinched home-court advantage in the opening round. Instead, the Knicks claimed the regular-season series 3-1 by prevailing in a game Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said ahead of time he believed would carry increased psychological weight for his team because the postseason is around the corner. It begins April 15.
“These are moments that you have to learn from,” Bickerstaff said. “They are failures that frustrate you and piss you off.
“I believe in our guys — that they’ll take the right message from this and understand what’s on the line and what’s at stake and what you have to be willing to do to win in these moments.”
Point guard Darius Garland, who had 20 points and nine assists, contended the Cavs have responded well before with their backs against the proverbial wall.
Well, they have four regular-season games remaining and need to ensure their confidence will be intact when it matters most.
“This sucks to feel this way this late in the season, but if we hang our head on this, we have no chance in the playoffs,” Mitchell said. “[I want my teammates to] worry about it in the right context, but don’t let this linger, because at the end of the day it’s a whole new ballgame when the playoffs start, and there’s so much we can take from this — positive, negative, constructive — and we’ll respond. We’ll be better.”
Improvements must materialize for Mitchell to avoid being haunted, in all likelihood, by his hometown NBA team during his first postseason with the Cavs.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at [email protected]. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.
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