Donovan Mitchell addresses hard foul from Jayson Tatum that made him bleed
"I'm good. He got me here (pointing to his cheek) and I was just praying that I didn't have a concussion."
A collision with Jayson Tatum left Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell bleeding from his mouth in the waning seconds of the Celtics’ 120-117 win over Cleveland Tuesday night.
As Mitchell dribbled the ball up the floor, Tatum reached for a steal and wound up ramming his shoulder into Mitchell’s face. Mitchell remained on the floor for around a minute before getting up to take free-throws. He made both shots.
Mitchell said after the game that he is feeling OK and that the hit appeared worse than it actually was.
“I thought it was worse than what it was. I just watched it,” Mitchell said in a video posted by CLNS Media. “It was just a reach-in foul. I just happened to hit a part of his body and it hurt but I thought it was worse in the moment, so if you would have asked me in the moment probably yeah, but it was just a basketball play.”
Mitchell placed his hands over his head as he laid on the floor. Trainers came over to check him out, and he was eventually able to stand up and finish the game.
“I’m good. He got me here (pointing to his cheek) and I was just praying that I didn’t have a concussion,” Mitchell said. “That’s my only thing. But like I said, it was a play on the ball, he’s got bony shoulders, so I hit his shoulder and it is what it is.”
The Celtics built a 17-point lead by halftime. The Cavs cut it down to four in the second half, but ultimately were unable to overcome the deficit.
“I think it just got a little too stagnant,” Mitchell said. “We were kind of watching each other, and I think for us just continuing to get into that ball movement. Also, we didn’t push the pace. They did a good job of being physical. We weren’t really able to get up the floor, get into the paint, and create.”
Mitchell said he viewed the game as a measuring stick. Cleveland has the best record in the Eastern Conference at 15-1, and the Celtics are the defending champions.
“You can learn a lot from these matchups,” Mitchell said. “I think you don’t just say this is the end-all-be-all, but I think you can learn a lot from what we did. There were a lot of things they did well, a lot of things we did well, and a lot of things we did poorly and we can adjust to. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly great as a team but at the end of the day we found a way to execute and that’s something we can be proud of.
“When you play against the defending champs, when you play against playoff contenders you always want to continue to come out and fight,” he added. “And then the NBA Cup, you want to go to Vegas. You want to find ways to win that as well. It’s definitely a measuring stick. You want to see where you’re at but not hold too much weight on it, because we’re going to continue to build and we’re not going to be the same team that we are in April.”
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