‘Superhero’ Donovan Mitchell exploded in a record 48 years

The Cleveland Cavaliers were on the verge of a long, difficult plane ride home from the nation’s capital NBA MVP candidate Donovan Mitchell came to the rescue again.

“We found Donovan Mitchell or Donovan Mitchell found us,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson he said postgame. “It was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. He had 35 in the second half.”

Trailing 100-85 on the road to an inexperienced 3-19 Washington Wizards team and without Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, Khris Middleton or Corey Kispert, Mitchell detonated for half of his 48 points in the fourth quarter to help the Cavs escape DC. It was a season high and the second highest point total of his career.

Once again, the Cavs relied on their own six-time All-Star guard to dig them out of a self-made hole and he carried them.

“I mean, really, all year,” Lonzo Ball said after the win. “It’s Spider-Man. He’s definitely our superhero. We need to help him more.”

“I can’t really lose this game after halftime,” Mitchell added in the locker room after the game. “It’s always about finding points. I think in the first half you feel it, and then you realize it’s time to go and be aggressive. Maybe it’s not always the shots, but sometimes when you’re aggressive, you go downhill, you create, and obviously, when the shots are falling, you keep shooting.”

Was his team’s effort what he expected after a a long break with a heavy film session? Mitchell pondered this with a long, twofold answer.

“You’re not always going to come out and just (dominate right away),” Mitchell said. “As much as you want it, it’s not just made that way, right? So you understand there’s a positivity in responding because we put ourselves in a position where, after losing to Golden State, you’re playing a team that’s 3-19 and you’re down 15. When the shots inevitably were (falling), we realized that.

“On the other hand, it can’t happen, and we can’t be in that position. We’ve had this conversation. This can’t happen. We can’t be in that position, so we have to figure it out. I don’t really have an answer for you. I’m just proud of the answer. Keep chipping away. As much as we’d like it to be, ‘Okay, don’t’ like it was for five days. So this is a good step to learn from and continue to carry it into (the game) and beyond.

Mitchell shared that he is Caves are ‘stuck in mud’ right now and they’ll have to find a way to get out of it. He immediately pointed to positives like Evan Mobley and De’Andre rebounding, Darius Garland’s downhill fourth quarter, Ball and Craig Porter Jr. filling the gaps on the defensive end, Dean Wade playing the half-roll and Jaylon Tyson keeping his eyes open as a playmaker.

“Everybody has a role to play,” Mitchell said. “And that’s where we use it to lift us up, instead of saying, ‘F***, we didn’t do that.’ No, let’s pick ourselves up and get out of there.”

Cleveland started the final period with a four-back lineup around Mobley, which quickly turned the tide out of the gate. It was Mitchell, Garland, Ball and Porter who pressured the ball, forced Washington turnovers and got the Wine and Gold going in transition.

“Defensively, we set the tone,” Mitchell said. “There was a wall. There were no easy moves, we were competing on the boards, getting steals, getting deflections. That’s what got the energy up. I think (Porter) and Lonzo really set that tone for us in the fourth quarter, and you stick with it. He ended up winning the game. That’s great, but I do what he does. high, high value.”

“Our defensive intensity, I think turned it around for us,” Ball added. “We started getting easy baskets, we started getting turnovers and playing with a lot more energy, I feel. That all carried over from the whole fourth, and in the end we came back and won.”

Atkinson thanked Cavs assistant Johnny Bryant for his plea to put Porter in the game.

“I didn’t want to put CP on,” Atkinson said. “He was like, ‘Put on CP. Listen to me.’ That was a great call from Johnny. I thought it was a game changer. He had several steals and rebounds. You know, CP has had a couple of games like that this year where he feels like he comes in, changes the spirit, changes the energy of the game. He was our candle (Friday).”

Ball was a plus-26 in the box despite going just 1-of-6 in the contest, but it was a critical triple to give Cleveland a one-point lead at the 2:58 mark on a Garland layup.

“I know the player,” Atkinson said. “I know he’s going to turn around. It started to turn around (Friday). But really, where he was a star player, it was his defense. That was the real reason we wanted him in the game. He’s an elite defender in this league, and he goes in there and rebounds. We needed him (Friday), we needed a big game from him. We had some other guys struggling.”

The ball was touching the paint, which had to happen after the Cavs took – and missed – a lot of 3s. From there, they saw it go through the net and increased their intensity, which trickled down to the rest of the team by the end of the period.

This wasn’t the best look for Cleveland after a long layoff, but at least it resulted in a win against a team the wine and gold couldn’t afford to lose to.

Thank God for wine and gold friendly neighborhood SpidaMan.