The Toronto Raptors are set to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the NBA playoffs. With this matchup, Toronto will be tasked with trying to slow down one of the preeminent players in the league, Donovan Mitchell.
Donovan Mitchell is a reigning First-Team All-NBA player and has made a great case to be selected to First-Team All-NBA again this season with averages of 27.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.7 assists.
The question for Darko Rajakovic and the rest of the Toronto Raptors coaching staff will be: how do you slow down Donovan Mitchell?
How does Donovan Mitchell beat defenses?
Understanding how Donovan Mitchell scores at such an elite level is the first step in slowing him down. Mitchell is a menace in the pick-and-roll, ranking in the 87th percentile in efficiencyas a ball handler in those situations. Much of that production comes from his scoring, where he ranks fourth in the league in points generated as a pick-and-roll ball handler.
Mitchell is also an offensive engine unto himself, creating efficient offense at elite volume. Expect the ball to be in his hands a lot during this series.
During the regular season, Mitchell’s usage percentage (the percentage of a team’s offensive possessions that a player finishes while they’re on the court) was 32.2%, seventh in the league. He also scored an outstanding 61.5% of his baskets without a teammate getting an assist.
For context, Toronto’s go-to scorer, Brandon Ingram, had a 26.9% usage rate and scored 46.4% of his baskets without an assist. Donovan Mitchell knows how to create for himself.
Stopping Donovan Mitchell will be a team effort
Scottie Barnes is, without a doubt, this team’s best and most versatile defender. In almost every game, he takes it upon himself to guard the other team’s best player. Barnes defending Donovan Mitchell is the easy defensive matchup to suggest, but it is not necessarily the best.
Breakout sophomore Ja’Kobe Walter is poised to take on a larger role this postseason. He scored in the 80.7th percentile for isolation defense. Although Walter may not be ready for 30+ minutes a night in the playoffs, he should spend most of his minutes guarding Cleveland’s offensive engine.
Putting Walter on Mitchell will free Barnes to defend one of Cleveland’s bigs. This comes with a couple advantages.
Firstly, Barnes can fly around the floor in help defense, attempting to wreak havoc whenever Mitchell drives into the paint. Second, when there is a pick-and-roll, Barnes can switch onto Mitchell and take the assignment from there. The rest of the defense would need to account for the mismatch created by that switch, but if Barnes can suffocate Mitchell enough, that may not matter.
When Walter sits, Barnes should take over as the primary defender on Mitchell. The real problem will come when Barnes has to sit. Head coach Darko Rajakovic should attempt to limit the amount of minutes that Mitchell is on the floor without Barnes. For the minutes Barnes is off the floor, the team will likely need rookie Collin Murray-Boyles to give his best Scottie Barnes impression.
Ultimately, if Toronto cannot disrupt Mitchell, nothing else in this series will matter. But if they can make his life difficult, the Raptors have a real chance to pull off an upset.
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