When Donovan Mitchell was held scoreless (save two free throws) in the first quarter of this game, I’m thinking it was pretty likely that TNT headquarters were descending into chaos. Do you think their executives were running into each others offices yelling “This highly-touted matchup between stud shooting guards has been a total flop! TV’s are being turned off left and right!”? Do you think interns were setting stuff on fire/using the photocopier to wallpaper the bathrooms with pages from Playboy? TNT stands to make more money if Mitchell plays well, but he started the game 0-of-4 from the field and it was looking like a bad idea to put an untested Jazz team on national TV.
Then Mitchell picked it up, scored 26 points, generated some highlights, and crisis was averted. I don’t know if Mitchell knew or cared that all of America was watching the game to see him, but he definitely knew that he was going to be able to shred Harden with his speed and ball skills, so that’s what he did. Most of this video is layups (“LAMEups”) instead of swagged-out stepback jumpers, but that’s fine in this case because I got to watch Harden get left in the dust time and time again.