Cavaliers’ 126-113 victory<\/a> over the Toronto Raptors in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.<\/p>\nIt is an NBA-record nine straight games in which Mitchell has scored at least 30 points in a series opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something like I\u2019m searching for,\u201d said Mitchell of trying to put up at least 30 to start a series. \u201cIt\u2019s just something that I\u2019m playing my game. Just trying to set a tone of aggression by getting downhill, taking the open shots, taking what\u2019s given to me and obviously making the defense have to react.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s streak began with the Utah Jazz during the 2020 playoffs \u2014 held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, during the COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 when he scored 57 points against the Denver Nuggets. That remains a Jazz playoff record and the third-highest-scoring performance in NBA postseason history.<\/p>\n
Mitchell is 5-4 during this run in series openers, including 3-3 with Cleveland since coming over in a trade from Utah in September 2022.<\/p>\n
James Harden, who was acquired from the LA Clippers in a trade-deadline shocker, helped settle the Cavaliers during a close first half, but it was Mitchell and Max Strus who helped deliver the knockout blows to the Raptors in the second half.<\/p>\n
Mitchell had 13 points in the first half to Harden’s 15 as the Cavaliers were up 61-54 at halftime. Mitchell scored 11 and Strus added eight as Cleveland dominated the third quarter and were up by 21 going into the final 12 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s his job. That\u2019s what he gets paid the big bucks for being aggressive, taking shots and doing his thing. We understand that, so our job is to just go out there and fulfill the roles and do other things to impact the game,\u201d Harden said. \u201cI think for me, it’s trying to get more assists and trying to get into the paint. We’ve got shooting, we’ve got bigs who are versatile and athletic. My job is to get them the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harden finished with 22 points and 10 assists that led to 23 points. Six of the assists went to center Jarrett Allen and forward Evan Mobley. <\/p>\n
Mitchell’s 30th point came on a driving layup with 9:28 remaining to extend Cleveland’s lead to 106-84. The nine-year veteran shot 7 of 13 from inside the paint, which is something that pleased coach Kenny Atkinson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said that before the game, how we\u2019ve changed our mindset where we\u2019ve become more rim- and paint-oriented. Don, he can try to do those pirouette 3s, but I think he was locked in on getting to the rim and made some really good decisions,” Atkinson said.<\/p>\n
Mitchell is averaging 33.1 points in series openers, second-highest in NBA history for a player who has taken part in at least 10 postseason series. His playoff average of 28.4 points is tied with LeBron James for sixth-best among players with at least 50 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we handled the environment and the crowd pretty well. They had a lot of guys scoring at a high rate and they got a lot of easy shots, getting to the rim and dunks,” said Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, who scored 21 points.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2013 Donovan Mitchell has more support on the Cleveland Cavaliers roster going into this year’s postseason run.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,864,576,560,1178,590,185,872,6,1261,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-713507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-donovan-mitchell","10":"tag-evan-mobley","11":"tag-james-harden","12":"tag-jarrett-allen","13":"tag-ken-atkinson","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-max-strus","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-scottie-barnes","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116428134390710742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713507","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=713507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}