Donovan Mitchell facing Knicks comes full circle

On Apr 15, 2023

New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson (11) drives against Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, March 31, 2023, in Cleveland.

INDEPENDENCE — The New York Knicks nearly pulled off a blockbuster trade for Donovan Mitchell last summer. The Knicks hoped to make a playoff run with him. Now they’ll have to go through him.

Instead of Mitchell heading to the Knicks, he instead joined the Cavs and guided them to their first playoff berth since 2018 and the first without LeBron James since 1998. And now, fittingly, it’ll be the Mitchell-less Knicks and the Mitchell-led Cavs facing off in a first round playoff series that begins 6 p.m. Saturday with Game 1.

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Two franchises that could have taken much different paths had the trade routes been flipped are now on a collision course with Mitchell, a native New Yorker now the face of the franchise in Cleveland, in the middle of it all.

“It’s a full-circle moment,” Mitchell said Friday at the team’s practice facility. “Life has been full of, especially this year, full-circle moments for me.”

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Had Mitchell instead been dealt to the Knicks, the Cavs likely wouldn’t be sitting as the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. While they reached fringe playoff contention a year ago, Mitchell’s addition truly transformed them into contenders. Mitchell averaged a career-best 28.3 points, including a historic 71-point performance and five consecutive 40-point games to close out the regular season.

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But in this series, it’s also a chance for redemption of sorts. Mitchell’s Utah Jazz were knocked out of last year’s playoffs in the first round. For the last year, that hasn’t sat well with him.

“I feel like I’ve felt that way the whole year,” Mitchell said when asked if he felt like he had something to prove. “That’s just been kind of my M.O. throughout my career — trying to prove my caliber of play.”

Above anything else, it was how painful it was to be home so early that stuck with Mitchell.

“How early I was at the crib,” Mitchell said. “To be honest, watching those games, I’ll never forget just sitting there watching the rest of the first-round games and I’m just like, ‘Man, we’re done.'”

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One aspect of Mitchell’s offense that has been applauded by the Cavs all season is that although he can pour in points, he also does it within the team’s offense in a fluid way, even to the point that teammates have looked up at the end of some game and been surprised that he was above 40 points again. Mitchell plans to follow that path again, even if these playoffs games carry with them some additional importance.

“Not going to make it too much of, ‘Oh, this is my thing,'” Mitchell said. “This is a team game, and we’re not going to win if I just tried to shoot every single time I go out there. Got to do this as a group collectively, and that’s what got us to this point.”

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The “full-circle” moments don’t stop there with Mitchell and the Knicks, though. In last year’s playoffs, when Mitchell watched the Dallas Mavericks beat his Jazz in six games, Dallas was led by Jalen Brunson, who went on a scoring surge in place of Luka Doncic. Brunson is now a member of the Knicks, which sets up a playoff-setting rematch between him and Mitchell.

“He’s there. Got to go through him,” Mitchell said. “It’s not just him … but Jalen is the head of the snake, so we’re got to go out there and find a way to contain him and make sure other guys don’t go off. It’ll be a lot of fun. This is why you play the game, for games like this.”