Mitchell a quick study as an NBA rookie
Guard using Bryant as a guide on how to take over game
A year ago most would not have expected a rookie to be wedged between Kevin Durant and DeMar DeRozan on the postseason scoring leader board. But after a 38-point performance to knock Durant’s former team out of the first round of the playoffs, Utah guard Donovan Mitchell has started collecting milestones to add to his budding legacy.
It took Mitchell just six contests to score 20 points in an NBA game. The former Louisville guard dropped 21 in a 110-96 loss to the Rockets in Game 1 on Sunday, a step below his 27.4point playoff average.
“The funny thing is a lot of people have been hitting me up saying ‘It’s all right. Keep your head up. It’s only Game 1.’ But my head was never down. I don’t think any of our heads were ever down,” Mitchell said. “Being down 0-1 last series (and) seeing how we responded gives you more hope than if this had been an opening round.”
With starting point guard Ricky Rubio out with a hamstring injury, Mitchell will be counted on even more in the series. While coaches and players have emphasized that no one player can replicate Rubio’s impact, Mitchell’s production certainly hints at an effort to try.
“The primary thing with Ricky out is we miss a vocal leader who’s really locked in and knows the game,” Mitchell said. “The first thing that coach and even Joe (Ingles) and a lot of guys have said is keep playing the way I have been. There are times that I’ve been focused on that, ‘Let’s make the pass, make the pass.’ Then it becomes predictable and all the turnovers start to arise.”
Mitchell’s point total Sunday was his lowest of the postseason. But with a game to acclimate to the Rockets’ defensive approach and two days to rest and reset from the previous series against Oklahoma City, Mitchell believes this series has hardly begun. In fact, he said having to play the Rockets within 48 hours of beating the Thunder taught him a lesson in pushing forward and having a short memory.
“Even though we didn’t play our greatest (Sunday), we were still in the game at certain points (and) that if we could just take away some of (James Harden’s) 3s and some of the open shots they got then we’ll be in good shape,” he said.
To make his mark on the series, Mitchell has been studying one of the best scorers to play the game: Kobe Bryant.
“Being in my first year in the league, he’s become one of my favorite players to watch,” he said. “We were talking about playoff guys and taking over and Kobe is one of those guys that it didn’t matter what happens, he’d go out there and do it. The way he responded after losing Game 3 at home (in 2009), and he came out and hit the first 11 points. That mentality is one that I’m trying to get myself.”
Mitchell watched a recent episode of Bryant’s series “Detail” in which the former Laker broke down his performance against the Rockets in Game 1. Mitchell said he’d watched it twice by Tuesday’s practice.
“He was saying, ‘That can’t happen, this can’t happen,’ and I was laughing because I’m like, he’s right,” Mitchell said.
Like Bryant, the 21-year-old Jazz guard has shown the ability to take over games, though he said it’s never planned.
“I think it’s more just having a feel,” he said. “(In) Game 6, coach told me that it was going to happen, that I was going to go off in the way I did.”
After Harden scored a gamehigh 41 points Sunday, Mitchell is hoping he can muster a similar effort to even the series.