Donovan Mitchell’s late explosion lifts Cavaliers over Celtics: 9 takeaways
The NBA may have to do something about fouling up 3.
Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers claimed a 115-111 victory over a short-handed Celtics team that was without Jaylen Brown and Derrick White on Sunday, maintaining their spot at the top of the Eastern Conference.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Donovan Mitchell put the Cavaliers on his back.
The Cavaliers rallied back from a double-digit deficit in the second half, but the Celtics were still in a good position to win until Donovan Mitchell went absolutely berserk in the fourth quarter.
Mitchell scored 15 of his 35 points in the final 3:13, punishing the Celtics with three consecutive triples and a go-ahead floater that put the Cavaliers in the driver’s seat before hitting four free throws down the stretch that iced the game.
Mitchell is an incredibly tough cover — a hyper-explosive guard with great range, a feathery floater and maybe most importantly, a ton of confidence in big moments, especially against the Celtics. Only Michael Jordan has averaged more points against the Celtics in his career than Mitchell, which explains why it feels like the Celtics are facing a top-five player all time whenever Mitchell gets into his bag.
The Celtics should have more answers for Mitchell’s pick-and-roll attack when they don’t have to play Sam Hauser and other bench players during crunch time, but Mitchell is a big-game monster who could give the Celtics fits in the playoffs.
“He’s this type of player,” Kristaps Porzingis told reporters afterward. “He’s very strong. He has a good pace. He can create a lot of space with his stepbacks and his movements. And then when he rises up, once he gets going, it’s tough.
“Of course, we have one of the best guards, if not the best guard, defensively in Jrue, who’s trying to make it difficult for him. But that’s a good player, and sometimes good players just go off like that and hit big, big shots. So hats off to Donovan.”
2. The NBA may have to do something about fouling up 3.
The Cavaliers made the objectively correct decision down the stretch to intentionally foul the Celtics while they were nursing a 3-point lead, forcing the Celtics into a free-throw contest that burned precious time off the clock.
Whenever the Celtics inbounded the ball, the Cavaliers let them run it up the floor, only to foul immediately after halfcourt. Payton Pritchard made all of his requisite free throws, but after the Celtics used their last timeout to advance the ball with five seconds remaining, he missed an opportunity to try to draw a three-shot foul by elevating while Evan Mobley went to foul him. As a result, Pritchard had to try to intentionally miss a free throw, and he went into the paint too early trying to get the rebound.
Given that the Cavaliers had a 95-percent free-throw shooter in Darius Garland and an 80-percent free-throw shooter who isn’t shaken by big moments in Mitchell, the strategy was undeniably good.
The product, however, suffered miserably: After an electric three-minute stretch during which the Cavaliers’ stadium shook every time Mitchell made another big shot, the game ground to a halt and eventually petered out.
The NBA has already eliminated transition take fouls, which allows for more fast breaks and more exciting opportunities at the rim. Eliminating fouls up by three could help restore some flow to games like Sunday, especially given that NBA games are notoriously choppy toward the end anyway.
3. Drew Peterson got surprise minutes.
With White and Brown out, the Celtics tried some unconventional looks. The biggest surprise may have been Drew Peterson, who played 25 minutes, more than quintupling his total minutes for the season to date.
Peterson played pretty well in his stint: Eight points on 2-for-6 shooting, but 2-for-5 from 3-point range, and he grabbed four rebounds. He won’t play a major role going forward, but the Celtics might be glad to see he can hold his own if they are short-handed again as they enter a busy week.
“It was great to see him out there,” Porzingis said. “I like that he wasn’t shy. … I told him right away to look for his stuff because he’s a good offensive player, and yeah, he wasn’t shy all night long. He shot his shots and played good defense, and showed his game in a high-level game like this. It was really cool to see.”
4. Attacking Darius Garland still works.
The Celtics continued to single out Garland, and the Cavaliers didn’t really have a great answer for it. The Cavaliers are going to struggle with his defensive matchups even more when Brown and White are back in, but Jayson Tatum scored 33 points in the loss and did so in a variety of ways, including post-ups, drives to the paint, and 3-pointers. Some of those buckets came against Okoro, but a great number came against Garland,. He smoked a crucial layup in the final minute that would have tied the game by driving straight into Garland.
A reporter asked Mazzulla about the Celtics generating opportunities after the game.
“I thought we did that,” Joe Mazzulla said. “I thought we did a great job. I thought we got really good looks down the stretch. I know we had paint pull-ups, we had kick-out threes. I mean, any time Al gets nine, ten threes, it means we’re sharing the ball and the guys are spaced.
“They obviously had some physical possessions, but I thought for the most part we managed the spacing and with their rim protection and their ability to do stuff, I thought we fought to get the shot we wanted more times than not.”
5. The Cavaliers tried trapping Tatum in the fourth.
With Tatum demolishing Garland and making a lot of tough mid-range jumpers, the Cavaliers forced the ball out of his hands down the stretch by double-teaming him out of the pick-and-roll when Garland found himself on the Celtics star.
It’s worth noting that the Cavaliers won’t be able to trap Tatum in the playoffs if the Celtics are even remotely healthy — he’s entirely too good at passing, and Brown, White, Holiday, Porzingis, Horford, Pritchard, and Hauser would all punish them.
On a Sunday evening in December, however, the Cavaliers were able to take the ball out of the hands of the Celtics’ most dangerous scorer.
6. The Celtics won a very successful challenge.
Midway through the third quarter, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla called for a surprising challenge, requesting that the officials take a second look at an offensive foul whistled against Pritchard.
Both the NBC Sports Boston broadcast and the writer of tonight’s takeaways for Boston.com fully expected Mazzulla to lose the challenge and a timeout – on second glance, it appeared that Pritchard had pushed Cavs wing Isaac Okoro off in his attempt to clear space at the rim.
The officials, however, didn’t agree: Okoro, apparently, used his leg to trip Pritchard before Pritchard went down. Because the Celtics were in the bonus, they got a pair of free throws out of the deal, which Pritchard knocked down.
Having a second challenge didn’t really benefit the Celtics, however: With seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Jrue Holiday was stripped under the basket and whisked his finger around in the air to Mazzulla, who acquiesced and challenged. The ball, however, clearly went off Holiday’s leg, and the officials did not reverse the call.
Whether Holiday will have Mazzulla’s trust the next time he calls for a challenge remains to be seen.
7. Luke “Dikembe Mutombo” Kornet?
The Celtics did get Mitchell once on Sunday: Late in the third quarter, Mitchell tried to put Luke Kornet on a poster, but the 7-footer swatted the dunk and shook his finger at Mitchell afterward, mimicking the famous celebration by the late great Dikembe Mutombo, who passed away in September.
8. The Celtics and Cavaliers look like two of the NBA’s best.
The Cavaliers had two of their best wings back in the lineup with Okoro and Caris Levert. The Celtics were short-handed, but they had Kristaps Porzingis back. Sunday’s game was the second in less than a month between the two no-questions-asked best teams in the East through the first two months of the season, and both teams looked every bit as challenging against each other as they did in their first showdown.
Early in the season, getting swept up in a highly competitive game is easy, and fans often prematurely proclaim they want to see Team X play Team Y in the playoffs.
But the Celtics and Cavaliers look every bit like two genuine heavyweight contenders who ask a lot of questions of each other.
How the Cavaliers plan to deal with Porzingis’ floor spacing and the Jays’ ability to hunt their worst defenders to death remains to be seen. How the Celtics plan to limit Mitchell’s creative, explosive offensive attack is yet to be answered.
How competitive another playoff series would be between two teams that locked horns in last year’s postseason as well — especially if they both continue to battle at the top of the East’s standings all year — is a question that may be premature, but we stand by it.
Here’s hoping we get a playoff series between these teams.
9. No rest ahead.
Sunday’s game was the first of a five-games-in-seven-nights stretch, which continues on Monday with a home game against the Heat. That game tips off at 7:30 p.m.
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