The Cleveland Cavaliers lost a key game on Sunday, but they could’ve lost much more than just that.
Donovan Mitchell left the game in the third quarter after rolling his ankle.
He stepped on the back of Keon Ellis’s foot, and he was in obvious pain.
Eventually, he was able to walk into the locker room on his own power, and he returned to the court with three minutes left in the third quarter.
When asked about that major health scare, coach Kenny Atkinson wanted to look at the positive side of it, stating that it could’ve been a whole lot worse:
“I look at it as a positive,” Atkinson said. “Imagine his ankle is bad, he’s out for a couple of weeks, that could easily happen. So I am looking at it like a positive, man. He came back, finished playing the whole fourth quarter, so that might be the most positive thing of the night.”
Mitchell scored 19 points in the loss, and he hasn’t been the same player over the past couple of weeks.
Everybody knows what he’s capable of, and he’s had some epic performances in the playoffs in the past.
Nevertheless, with the team not playing its best basketball right now, it will need its leading scorer to step up and put the team on its shoulders.
Hopefully, it won’t have to come down to that.
The Cavs have shared the offensive load efficiently for most of the season, and they haven’t needed Mitchell to do all the heavy lifting.
Nevertheless, rotations tend to shrink in the postseason, and with opposing teams focusing on taking your strengths away, sometimes it all comes down to talent and a player’s ability to create his own shot and get things going.
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