{"id":734882,"date":"2026-05-15T08:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/734882\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T08:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:42:25","slug":"donovan-mitchell-names-three-key-players-who-changed-cavaliers-nba-playoffs-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/734882\/","title":{"rendered":"Donovan Mitchell names three key players who changed Cavaliers’ NBA Playoffs run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donovan Mitchell names three key players who changed Cavaliers’ NBA Playoffs run<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> have a lot of talent for their NBA Playoffs run. Coach Kenny Atkinson utilizes great talents like Evan Mobley<\/a>, Jarrett Allen<\/a>, and Max Strus<\/a> to their full advantage which is why they are a win over the Detroit Pistons<\/a> away from making it back to the Eastern Conference Finals. But, Donovan Mitchell<\/a> posits that there are three over players who altered their postseason campaign\u00a0\u2014 Keon Ellis<\/a>, James Harden<\/a>, and Dennis Schroder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Mitchell gets real on NBA Playoffs impact of Ellis, Harden, and Schroder for Cavaliers<\/p>\n

Usually, stars get all the credit for when a team does extremely well in the NBA Playoffs. Donovan Mitchell thinks <\/a>otherwise. Coach Kenny Atkinson has ensured that the ball moved around the team, especially against the Pistons. This is why the Cavaliers superstar posits that Keon Ellis, James Harden, and Dennis Schroder have been crucial in helping them gain momentum, via Joe Vardon of The Athletic.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Of course \u2026 you want to win, you want to get to the highest level, and it\u2019s more of an incentive. It\u2019s not a distraction, in a sense; it just makes you hungrier. I think, putting myself aside, I think this is great for the group. This is why we work so hard, why we made the trade for James and Dennis and Keon. So yeah, it\u2019s exciting to get that momentum and get one step closer. But we haven\u2019t done anything yet, so I can\u2019t go there,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

These three players that Mitchell named off the Cavaliers system have <\/a>been very valuable throughout this NBA Playoffs run. Harden is a veteran under the limelight and it showed. He played 43 minutes and scored 30 points against a rough Pistons defense to win Game 5. Ellis, on the other hand, may not be delivering big numbers but his defensive prowess has been insane for the Cavaliers. To top it all off, Schroder acts as a secondary ballhandler for when Coach Atkinson is resting both Harden and Mitchell.<\/p>\n

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Huge numbers are not solely what make up a great team in the NBA Playoffs. Mitchell values these key players in Coach Atkinson’s system because they do all of the hidden work. Now, the Cavaliers are on the edge of making an Eastern Conference Finals appearance without\u00a0 having to need LeBron James<\/a> after a long time.<\/p>\n

More Cavaliers News:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donovan Mitchell names three key players who changed Cavaliers’ NBA Playoffs run originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,193,91007,1024,188,864,2955,576,560,1178,3627,3211,185,872,6,11],"class_list":["post-734882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-coach-atkinson","tag-dennis-schroder","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-eastern-conference-finals","tag-evan-mobley","tag-james-harden","tag-jarrett-allen","tag-kenny-atkinson","tag-keon-ellis","tag-lebron-james","tag-max-strus","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116577707156578544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734882","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=734882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}