INDIANAPOLIS — The formula has been basic and to the point for Davion Mitchell this season. Which basically is all you can ask from a point guard.
Keep the assists up, and keep the turnovers down.
Both categories are a source of pride, and among the reasons the Heat point guard has led the NBA in assist-to-turnover ratio much of the season.
And a reason, among others, why Friday night’s blowout loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers was so disappointing.
On the night the Heat allowed a franchise-record 149 points, Mitchell closed with four turnovers, one off his season high, after committing two or fewer in 13 of the previous 14 games.
With just four assists in that game, it dropped him from the league lead in assist-to-turnover ratio to fifth.
Prior to Friday night’s disappointment, Mitchell had been running 1-2 with Indiana Pacers guard and long-time Heat nemesis T.J. McConnell, Sunday’s opponent at Gainbridge Fieldhouse at the conclusion of the Heat’s three-game trip. Mitchell then went into Sunday at third in the NBA in the category, with McConnell on top, followed, among players with qualifying numbers, by Memphis’ Cam Spencer. The three stood as the only players with better than a 4-to-1 ratio.
“I try not to look at it,” Mitchell said of standing most of the season at the top of the NBA assist-to-turnover leader board. “I just go out there and do whatever it takes to win.”
Mitchell said his approach is not one based on statistics.
“I don’t try to go out there and get assists,” he said. “I just try to make the right play.”
Same, he said, with his ballhanding.
“If I turn the ball over, it’s a part of the game,” he said. “But I don’t look at the numbers, because it’s like no point for me to look at it
“All it is, is going to be on my mind mentally.”
But there also is an appreciation of helping with the assists.
“If that’s what it takes, then sure,” he said, continuing to be in the league lead in assist ratio, the number of assists a player records per 100 possessions utilized.
While also keeping the turnovers down.
“We know teams are going to try to protect the paint. I’ve realized I need to be quicker with the ball,” he said. “Sometimes I take two dribbles and they tip it. It’s about making the simple, open read.”
While the Heat have never had an NBA leader in assist-to-turnover ratio since the league began tracking turnovers in 1977-78, it would be an impressive leaderboard for Mitchell to join, with previous annual leaders including Chris Paul and John Stockton.
For all of Erik Spoelstra’s lineup machinations, a constant from the Heat coach has been Mitchell as an every-game starter, something for the Heat that also only has been the case with Bam Adebayo and Andrew Wiggins.
Amid the Heat’s recent uneven play, Spoelstra has adjusted his rotation, including at point guard, where rookie Kasparas Jakucionis has been scaled back to a degree and Dru Smith has been shuffled to the back end in the mix.
With Mitchell, it’s more about being a settling presence, who makes the right play, while also staying away from the wrong play, willing to defer to Tyler Herro or Norman Powell.
When the Heat re-upped Mitchell last summer in free agency, it hardly was with the long view, on a two-year, $24 million deal that expires after next season, at a number that could come into play in facilitating a trade this offseason under the salary cap.
The sizzle remains Adebayo when he is scoring, Herro or Powell when they get hot from deep, or even Jaime Jaquez energizing off the bench.
And then there is Mitchell, making the right plays and avoiding the wrong ones, a study in assist-to-turnover.
Appreciating that more still is needed, perhaps in hopes of repeating last year’s play-in magic, when his overtime 3-pointers in the win-go-home road game against the Atlanta Hawks extended the Heat’s playoff run to six consecutive seasons.
“We got to get better each game honestly,” he said, with a play-in race showdown up next on Monday night against the Philadelphia 76ers at Kaseya Center, at the start of a critical three-game homestand.