Donovan Mitchell is DIFFERENT!
In a season filled with incredible, individual performances (like Luka’s recent, 60-21-10 game or Jokić’s 40-27-10 outburst), Mitchell took the cake in Monday’s crazy, comeback win over the Division-rival Chicago Bulls.
Mitchell put up one of the nastiest stat lines you’ll ever see - not only did he score the EIGHTH HIGHEST POINT TOTAL IN LEAGUE HISTORY (71), he became the first player to do so while dishing out 10 dimes as well.
Basically, if he were just a little more “selfish,” he was that close to potentially matching (or besting) Kobe Bryant’s legendary, 81-point performance from 2006.
Similar to Bryant in ‘06, Mitchell both spearheaded a charge to come from behind AND willed his way to victory. Down three (game on the line), with eight seconds left, Mitchell was intentionally fouled to prevent a game-tying triple.
Well, about that (strategy)…he calmly cashed the first, (purposely) missed the second but darted to the basket (ahem, lane violation but wasn’t called) & put back his OWN MISS (while falling) to send it to OT.
Mitchell then went on to torch CHI in OT, eventually ended up w/ a career-high & Cavs franchise-record of 71!
No more text is necessary though, you gotta check out the tape to witness how special of a performance it truly was: