{"id":720589,"date":"2026-04-28T21:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/720589\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:03:17","slug":"whos-more-important-to-the-cleveland-cavaliers-donovan-mitchell-or-james-harden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/720589\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s more important to the Cleveland Cavaliers — Donovan Mitchell or James Harden?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones Jr. debate which Cavs<\/a> star is more important to winning their playoff series vs. the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, James Harden<\/a> or Donovan Mitchell<\/a>. Check out the full conversation on \u201cThe Dunker Spot\u201d and subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, YouTube<\/a> or wherever you listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Video Transcript<\/p>\n

Who do you think it’s most important to get going heading into game five between Harden and Mitchell?<\/p>\n

Harden.<\/p>\n

I think e- even though Mitchell, Mitchell and Harden have not had their best two games in Toronto.<\/p>\n

And so, but I think Donovan Mitchell was able to get going and almost give Cleveland the victory in that game four.<\/p>\n

I think you have to find the comfort for James Harden to become a pressure point a different way to where, okay, you’re not really having fun with what we’re doing.<\/p>\n

And so get him back going to pick roll, get the drives back established.<\/p>\n

Mitchell, I think, can sustain and has had to for most of the season.<\/p>\n

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But I think when you have James Harden automatic pick and roll player, automatic drive and kick, drive and finish, get a bucket, that elevates the Cleveland offense.<\/p>\n

We, so we’ve seen the tale of two, I don’t wanna say series, but two moments.<\/p>\n

Like game one and game two was, hey, this is why you bring Donovan Mitchell and James Harden together.<\/p>\n

And if you were on the other side, game three and four is like, well, this is what happens when you have Donovan Mitchell and James Harden together.<\/p>\n

So- I think it’s important for James Harden to reestablish himself, as a force.<\/p>\n

I think Donovan’s just gonna be Donovan.<\/p>\n

But I think, it’s time for Big Jim to let the, the Raptors know what the goose is cooking.<\/p>\n

Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones Jr. debate which Cavs star is more important to winning their playoff series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3772],"tags":[2153,7,306,136,305,193,3846,864,560,6,50418,1165,52510,476,3263],"class_list":{"0":"post-720589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-apple-podcasts","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cavaliers","11":"tag-cavs","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","14":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","15":"tag-donovan-mitchell","16":"tag-james-harden","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nekias-duncan","19":"tag-playoff-series","20":"tag-steve-jones-jr","21":"tag-toronto-raptors","22":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116484361674450861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720589","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=720589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}