Donovan Mitchell has normally been a rock-solid playoff performer dating back to his days with the Utah Jazz. However, Mitchell is not having the best of times facing the Detroit Pistons defense over the past two games.
And perhaps Mitchell has already hit rock bottom in this year’s playoffs, as he struggled mightily on Friday night as the Cleveland Cavaliers failed to close out their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Pistons after suffering a 115-94 defeat in Game 6.
Mitchell did score 18 points on the night, but he shot 6-20 from the field and was overall a detrimental presence for the Cavs on the night. He struggled to gain much separation from Ausar Thompson, and he ended up being more of a black hole on offense. He recorded a game-worst minus-25 as Cleveland lost control of the game in his minutes — a far cry from the kind of impact any team would want from its best player.
After the game, Mitchell drew plenty of criticism on social media — with pundit Kevin O’Connor calling him out and even going as far as to call him “terrible”.
“Donovan Mitchell was terrible. Arguably should’ve been benched. Totally drained all life out of their half court offense. Not to mention he was a total zero on defense. Harden did his job. Mitchell didn’t. Awful Cavs loss. Mitchell needs to be way better or Pistons win Game 7,” O’Connor wrote on his official account on X (formerly Twitter).
Mitchell hasn’t been at his best over the past two games, and the Cavs simply dodged a bullet in Game 5 after the Pistons lost control in crunch time. He’s now scored 38 points on 13-39 shooting combined over the past two contests, and those performances simply aren’t good enough.
The Cavs star has to channel more of the kind of play he showed early on in the series if Cleveland were to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.