INDIANAPOLIS — Late Sunday night, following a third straight loss that temporarily dropped the Cavs outside the top 6 in the Eastern Conference, Donovan Mitchell had something to say.
Not to the media. To his teammates. Away from the cameras. Out of the spotlight.
“We gotta pick it up. If we want to be great, this ain’t it,” Mitchell said when asked about Sunday’s impassioned message to the group. “We were 20 games in and it’s like, what are we doing?
“This ain’t last year. I told you at the beginning of the year, they coming for us — as they should. They’re coming for your Defensive Player of the Year. They’re coming for my first team All-NBA. They coming for Kenny’s Coach of the Year. They coming for all that. We’re not the underdogs, we’re the hunted. We need to go out there and continue to act like it.”
About 24 hours later — against a lesser version of the rival Pacers who eliminated Cleveland from the playoffs this past spring and caused weeks of soul-searching and self-analysis — the Cavs did just that, playing the way Mitchell implored.
He led the way. Everyone else followed.
A [non-competitive 135-119 romp](https://www.cleveland.com/cavs/2025/12/cavs-shift-out-of-cruise-control-race-past-indiana-pacers-135-119.html). A 48-minute on-court therapy session, unleashing all that anger and hatred on the helpless Pacers.
“I think Don was frustrated last night and this is what the great ones do,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said of Mitchell. “I looked at him and I kind of knew we weren’t going to lose this game. He wasn’t going to let us lose.”
“He was locked in. Last time I seen him locked in like that was playoffs,” second-year swingman Jaylon Tyson added. “He definitely took these three losses personal and came out to play.”
Mitchell finished with a game-high 43 points, including 16 in the put-away fourth quarter. He added nine rebounds (Tyson snagged the 10th that would’ve secured Mitchell’s double-double) and six assists while going 16 of 27 from the field and 4 of 10 from 3-point range in 34 mood-setting minutes.
He briefly dismantled the scorer’s table diving for a loose ball. He corralled the second-most rebounds of anyone on the floor. He battled bigs underneath following switches. Led the team in assists. Hit timely shots. Anything and everything to help Cleveland end its three-game losing skid and snap out of this troubling weeklong malaise.
“We’re asking a lot,” Atkinson said when asked about Mitchell’s importance. “He’s really played like Superman for us, quite honestly. Without him, how many wins do we have? We have to ask ourselves that question.”
There’s another worth asking too: Is there an over-reliance on Mitchell’s brilliance?
“I don’t think it’s a good thing,” Atkinson responded pointedly. “I don’t like that process where we have to rely on him so much, but it kind of is what it is.”
With six every-night rotation players unavailable — Darius Garland (injured toe management), Sam Merrill (right hand sprain), Jarrett Allen (strained right finger), Larry Nance Jr. (calf strain), Lonzo Ball (illness) and Max Strus (foot surgery) — Atkinson knew Mitchell would need to carry a bigger load. Atkinson told Mitchell as much in a pregame text message.
“We had a little text exchange before the game and I said, ‘You’ve got to go for 40 tonight.’ I never said that to him or any player before,” Atkinson relayed. “I felt we needed him tonight. We have that kind of relationship where it can be just frank and I can tell him what we need. I don’t know if he needed my prodding. I really don’t. So don’t give me credit for this. I just wanted to make sure he knew that.”
Mitchell did — as soon as the final buzzer sounded on a loss to the undermanned Celtics on Sunday.
“I told Kenny it starts with me,” Mitchell said.
Determined to hold his team to an elevated standard, focused on building championship habits and eliminating the maddening inconsistency that has plagued the Cavaliers over the first quarter of the season, Mitchell arrived in Indiana with a purpose. He controlled the game — at both ends. Dictated terms throughout. Showed why his unheralded superpower is leadership.
“You could say, yeah, we have had 12 different starting lineups, I don’t care. If we want to be that team, we gotta consistently be that as a unit and not just one person,” Mitchell explained. “We didn’t solve anything tonight. We’ve gotta go out there and continue to play at this level. No disrespect to the Pacers, but we’re supposed to be where we’re supposed to be and they have a lot of talent over there, so I don’t want to come off as disrespectful at all, but we’re supposed to win this game.”
Mitchell is right. The Cavs have title aspirations. They are still viewed as one of the Eastern Conference favorites — even though they’ve rarely looked the part.
That’s where that frustration comes in. There are glimpses. A late-October massacre of J.B. Bickerstaff’s Pistons. A wire-to-wire destruction of the better-than-expected 76ers. Both games against Indiana — matchups in which Cleveland has led for about 89 out of possible 96 minutes. Even the fourth quarter Sunday night, as the Cavs nearly crawled out of a one-time 21-point hole and yanked a win from the jaws of defeat.
But it’s all buried beneath a pile of otherwise confounding play, which caused Mitchell to speak up — behind closed doors.
He wasn’t the only one. Tyson just did it publicly, discussing the team’s lack of hunger, even saying the Cavs are too often in “cruise control.”
“That’s the word around the whole locker room. That’s not me saying it. That’s from the whole locker room,” Tyson said following Monday’s triumph in Indiana. “We know what it is, and that’s how we can be such a good team because we take that criticism and move on with it. We’ve got to keep that same energy. It’s as simple as that.”
So, how were Tyson’s pointed comments received in the locker room?
“I’m proud of him saying it,” Mitchell said. “We all felt it. Just shows a belief in yourself, and it shows that he believes in the work he’s put in. He feels like he has a voice, and that comes with hard work and it comes with respect. That’s earned.”
Nights like Monday certainly help.
Backing up those words and playing with the kind of ferocity and energy that has built unwavering trust, Tyson finished with a season-high 27 points and 11 rebounds. It’s his second career double-double and second game ever with at least 20 points.
“Obviously, there’s some truth to what he is saying,” Atkinson admitted. “Competing, playing hard, he’s in that bucket. We’ve got to get more guys in that bucket quite honestly. It’s really our vets. I have no issues with our young guys. They play hard every possession. Sometimes we just get caught in these lulls because these guys have been really good in the league and kind of have to get off that to get this thing moving again in the right direction.”
Mitchell did his part on Monday. Same with Tyson. The Cavs also got good minutes from Evan Mobley, Dean Wade, Nae’Qwan Tomlin, De’Andre Hunter and rookie Tyrese Proctor.
It led to one of their most complete wins of the season — exactly how a title contender is supposed to look against one of the league’s worst.
At the very least, it was a small step forward and the kind of response everyone in that locker room wanted.
“It’s one game. Can we do it again and again? Because we haven’t, and we need to,” Mitchell said. “Tonight was great and cool, but we gotta do it again.”
As Mitchell spoke following Cleveland’s streak-snapping victory, he wore a serious look on his face. The same one from Sunday night. The same one Atkinson and teammates saw prior to Monday’s tipoff. Atkinson struggled to find words to describe it. He eventually called it “businesslike.”
Mitchell had his own descriptor.
“We’re 12-9. That’s the look,” he said. “We should not be 12-9 or whatever the hell we are.”