Utah Jazz stud: Donovan Mitchell
Any Utah Jazz fans concerned with Mitchell’s previous, subpar performance had to have slept well last night. Against the Pelicans, he came back: that is, if he’d ever left in the first place.
Mitchell finished this contest with 29 points on a hyper-efficient 11/19 shooting from the field and 5/9 shooting from downtown. His 5 assists to 5 turnovers weren’t particularly impressive. They were also misleading. Mitchell’s willingness to pass opened up countless opportunities for his Jazzmen, as a collapsed Pelicans defense routinely struggled to close out Jazz shooters.
The team didn’t shoot as high a volume of three-pointers as Utah Jazz fans have come to expect. They attempted a mere 39 on the night. That’s probably best explained by the club’s inability to find transition opportunities throughout the night. The Jazz always generate threes with space, but they had a hard time finding pace against a younger Pelicans squad.
Nonetheless, they made the most on the three-point attempts they did fire, connecting on 19 of them (48.7%). Mitchell deserves the lion’s share of the credit for that elite accuracy. The attention the Pelicans were routinely forced to pay the young Utah Jazz star led to open opportunities for teammates throughout the night.
Really, that’s how this Jazz machine is supposed to operate. Donovan Mitchell is the engine, and last night, he was purring. This was an important contest for Mitchell, as he’d struggled in the team’s previous meeting against the Warriors. Last night, he put any concerns about those struggles being related to his recent lower back injury squarely to rest.