{"id":700556,"date":"2026-04-06T00:59:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700556\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T00:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:59:16","slug":"winners-and-losers-cavs-vs-pacers-donovan-mitchell-owns-the-paint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700556\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and Losers: Cavs vs Pacers \u2013 Donovan Mitchell owns the paint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">A shorthanded <a href=\"http:\/\/fearthesword.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cleveland Cavaliers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Cleveland Cavaliers&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> beat an even more depleted Indiana Pacers team. Let\u2019s go over today\u2019s winners and losers.<\/p>\n<p>WINNER \u2013 Next Man Up<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">This was one of the larger injury reports you\u2019ll see for an NBA game. That\u2019s saying something in today\u2019s age.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cleveland wasn\u2019t as banged up as the Pacers, who were missing more than half of their roster due to injury. But the Cavs were still knackered enough to be without five rotational players. That puts a strain on any team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley, Jaylon Tyson, and Sam Merrill were all out today. That meant the Cavs would need a \u2018next man up\u2019 mentality to pull out this win, regardless of the opponent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I can\u2019t say it was perfect. Both the offense and defense struggled at various points. A few role players missed the mark and weren\u2019t able to be super productive in their opportunities. But helpful contributions from Dennis Schroder, Craig Porter Jr., and Keon Ellis made up the difference. Even Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin, who is shooting 20.4% from deep this season, nailed a huge shot in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Thomas Bryant, who started as the lone big man in place of Allen and Mobley, put up 14 points and 10 rebounds on 6-9 shooting against his former team. His dunk at the end was a cherry on top.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Beggars can\u2019t be choosers in these situations. Would you have liked to see the Cavs run up the score and obliterate an inferior opponent? Sure. Yet given the circumstances, this was a hard-fought win that was made possible by support from Cleveland\u2019s deep reserves.<\/p>\n<p>LOSER \u2013 Three-Point Defense<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I don\u2019t want to beat a dead horse. We\u2019ll make this quick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Pacers opened this game by shooting 6-8 from downtown in the first five minutes. That\u2019s\u2026 never going to be acceptable. The Cavs failed to set the tone in this game, and once a team gets rolling, it\u2019s much harder to slow them down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Per usual, it was a mixture of good shooting from the Pacers and poor defensive communication that led to Indiana\u2019s hot start. But in this league, giving an inch often comes with your opponent taking a mile. Cleveland must do a better job of stopping this trend before it starts.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Cavs eventually tightened up defensively and did enough to get this job done. It\u2019s just worth mentioning that this has been a consistent issue for the team.<\/p>\n<p>WINNER \u2013 Bagcourt<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">As mentioned, the Cavs were down key players for this game. That puts some onus on James Harden and Donovan Mitchell to carry even more weight than usual.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They handled that with ease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mitchell quickly made his presence felt by relentlessly attacking the paint. He finished with 38 points, 28 of which were in the paint, setting a new career-high for a single game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Cavs felt like they had an advantage inside, even without Mobley and Allen. That allowed Mitchell to knife into the lane and finish below the rim throughout the game. This is a skill that can be overlooked by Mitchell\u2019s electric three-point shooting. He\u2019s still one of the best below-the-rim finishers in basketball, and it\u2019s always a treat when he makes an extra effort to attack the basket.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Harden took a different approach. He launched an aerial assault, bombarding the Pacers with step-back three-pointers and earning multiple trips to the line on jump-shot attempts. At one point, Harden had 21 points on just 9 field goal attempts. That\u2019s pretty efficient.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In total, the two guards combined for 66 points and 13 assists on 24-44 shooting. With other stars across the league at risk of being ineligible for end-of-season awards, it\u2019s possible the Cavs backcourt could both land All-NBA nods this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A shorthanded Cleveland Cavaliers beat an even more depleted Indiana Pacers team. Let\u2019s go over today\u2019s winners and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,305,193,14901,1024,864,576,126,29326,560,1178,2286,3211,6,16,1166,362],"class_list":{"0":"post-700556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","11":"tag-craig-porter-jr","12":"tag-dennis-schroder","13":"tag-donovan-mitchell","14":"tag-evan-mobley","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-jalen-slawson","17":"tag-james-harden","18":"tag-jarrett-allen","19":"tag-jaylon-tyson","20":"tag-keon-ellis","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-ohio","23":"tag-sam-merrill","24":"tag-thomas-bryant"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116355056628818540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}