WASHINGTON (AP) — Against one of the NBA’s worst teams, Donovan Mitchell looked desperate in the final quarter, trailing by 15 points at the quarter mark.
“Be aggressive,” he said. “We really couldn’t lose this game after halftime.”
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Mitchell scored 24 of his 48 points in the fourth quarter and the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Wizards 130-126 on Friday night. Both teams came off five days off, with the Cavaliers shooting just 15 of 53 from 3-point range. It would have been even worse if Mitchell hadn’t made 8 of 15 shots.
The Wizards dropped to 3-20 this season.
Mitchell scored 11 points in about 2 1/2 minutes at the start of the fourth quarter. He ended up scoring the most points in the NBA’s fourth quarter this season, surpassing Orlando’s Jeter Howard’s 22 points against the Boston Celtics on November 23.
Mitchell averaged a league-high 9.6 points in the fourth quarter.
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“You’re facing a 3-point or something like that, and you’re down 15, you can kind of pull your tail … kind of give in, right?” Mitchell said. “But we found a way.”
The Cavaliers trailed by 17 points in the third quarter and only gave up 40 points. Entering the fourth quarter the score was 100-85. Mitchell finally hit a three-pointer to tie the score at 122, and then scored inside to give the Cavaliers the lead with one minute left.
Then the 6-foot-3 guard looked unstoppable — a jump ball between him and 6-foot-11 Marvin Bagley III. But neither player’s jump shot was timed correctly, and the ball eventually passed to Cleveland’s Lonzo Ball, who made two free throws with 30.9 seconds left to give the Cavaliers a 4-point lead.
As a result, Mitchell was able to look on the bright side after the game while understanding that a huge deficit was concerning in and of itself.
“This can’t happen. We can’t be in this situation,” he said. “We have to find a way.”
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