On Tuesday evening, the Cleveland Cavs picked up a narrow road win over the Milwaukee Bucks. It wasn’t necessarily a performance to write home about against a Bucks team playing without the injured Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Cleveland still did enough to get the victory and keep pace in the standings.
Among the Cavs who struggled in this game was star shooting guard Donovan Mitchell, who shot just 4-14 from the field en route to 19 points.
In fact, Mitchell stooped to a low he had not seen before in his Cavs tenure during this win.
“Donovan Mitchell was a minus-15 last night. That’s the worst plus/minus he’s had in a #Cavs win his entire time in Cleveland. It’s just the 17th time the Cavs won a game while being outscored with him on the floor in the past four seasons,” reported Danny Cunningham of Locked on Cavs on X, formerly Twitter.
The good news is that these kinds of performances are a rarity for Mitchell, who remains relatively efficient as a high-volume scoring guard, and has also seen a decrease in his offensive workload since the arrival of James Harden at the trade deadline.
Thankfully, Harden was on his game on Tuesday in Milwaukee, scoring 27 points to go along with six assists and five rebounds to help get Cleveland over the finish line.
The Cavs now sit at 42-27 on the season, good for fourth in the Eastern Conference. At this point, it looks unlikely that the Cavs could fall any further than that in the standings, but they could potentially improve their positioning with a hot streak to end the season.
The Cavs will next take the floor on Thursday evening against the Chicago Bulls on the road.