The Cleveland Cavaliers were 16-5 in the regular season when Donovan Mitchell scored 30 or more points. Orlando Magic head coach Jahmal Mosley didn’t seem to think this stat was relevant when he came up with his Game 1 strategy.
Mitchell played the Magic three times this season. Twice, they used Jalen Suggs — one of the best perimeter defenders in the league — as the primary defender. This resulted in one win for Orlando as Mitchell averaged 23.5 points on .405/.278/.923 shooting splits in two games. In the one game Gary Harris was the primary defender, the Cavs won due to a 35-point performance from Mitchell.
Mosley elected to go with Harris as the primary defender on Mitchell in Game 1. Predictably, Mitchell capitalized. He was able to get to his midrange shot, playmake in the paint, and finish at the rim with Harris on him.
“I think it’s just different times for different matchups,” Mosely said postgame about the decision to put Harris on Mitchell. “Gary understands where and which to guard him. Again, because of certain ways we were playing it.”
Guarding Mitchell isn’t a one-man job. The Magic switched most screens and hardly blitzed. This forced other defenders to spend time on Mitchell in isolation, including Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, who are two guys the Magic shouldn’t have easily allowed to switch onto him in isolation.
“He’s gonna make plays,” Wagner said, “It’s gonna take all five guys, not just the guy that’s guarding the ball.”
It’s easy to point to Orlando’s offense as the reason they lost. Teams don’t win when they score 83 points. The Magic can perform better on that end as Suggs and Harris won’t always go 4-22 from the field. However, there’s a reason they were the 22nd-ranked offense. That’s not going to magically change overnight given their personnel. Their defense is what can be drastically improved starting with how they guard Mitchell.
“Just trying to speed him up, pick him up full court, make him exert energy as much as you can,” Banchero said about what they need to do to Mitchell. Suggs is the guy who can do that.
Suggs does an excellent job of staying connected to his opponent on and off-ball. This caused Mitchell to rush things in the regular season which led to turnovers and close-range misses.
Suggs showed what he could do on Darius Garland as he held him to 14 points and five turnovers on Saturday. But, that skill would’ve been much better used on Mitchell who is much more important to what the offense tries to do.
Orlando should be doubling on screens when Mitchell is the ball handler. The concern for not doing so seems to be centered around not giving up open threes, which was the first thing Mosley said his team needed to stop when asked about the matchup pregame. The Cavs’ outside shooting has improved, but not to the level that you need to be concerned about switching everything like you need to against a team like the Boston Celtics that has shooters at every position.
Cutting out threes isn’t how you beat the Cavs. You beat them by not letting Mitchell dictate terms. The easiest way to do so is by blitzing ball screens and forcing it out of his hands.
The Magic went into Game 1 with the idea that they weren’t going to let the rest of the Cavaliers beat them as evidenced by putting their best perimeter defender on Garland and simply switching everything. We’ve seen teams enact that idea against star players as the last thing you want is to allow the star player and the role player’s around him to get going.
Mitchell isn’t that level of star that can take over a game no matter the defense you throw at him. The last two postseasons are proof of that. What you don’t want, is to allow exactly what transpired in Game 1. Mitchell got going, settled into the game, and dictated everything offensively. The Magic don’t have a chance this series if Mitchell can consistently do that.
“He’s gonna make tough shots, I think we can do a little better job though,” Banchero said. “I mean, he’s a great player. We gotta find a way to stop him. It takes the whole team.”
