Donovan Mitchell is too nice to be cunning the way Phil Jackson once was, but darn if he didn’t try.
After his Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Detroit Pistons in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal, on Tuesday, May 5, he complained to reporters that the referees were big ol’ meanies – they weren’t calling enough fouls.
Jackson – the Hall of Fame coach of the LA Lakers and Chicago Bulls whose coaching skills are perhaps matched only by his public relations talent – once lobbied the refs during a playoff series against the Pistons, too.
He just took it a step – or 10 – further and told the media the Pistons were bad for the game.
Ugly, even. Graceless bullies.
Mitchell wouldn’t go that far and seemed to undermine himself when he said Tuesday’s free throw disparity wasn’t the reason his team lost. But he was frustrated; he politely lobbied for more calls.
On Thursday, his plea worked … sort of.
Cleveland got to the line more in Game 2 and, more importantly for the Cavs, more than Detroit did. That it didn’t matter in the Pistons’ 107-97 win at Little Caesars Arena should send a shudder through the Cavaliers as they head back home. They can shoot more free throws. They can take more overall shots. They can win the possession battle.
They can still lose.
They did, as a matter of fact, on Thursday, in similar fashion to Game 1: They fell behind early, trailed at the half, rallied, got in the game in the fourth … and fell apart in the high-leverage moments. They’ll tell themselves they were right there.
Good for them.
But really, they should tell themselves they’re getting out-toughed and out-muscled, and that if they’re taking to post-game talks with the media to try to win the game, they’re already losing the battle.
Besides, these Cavaliers – and Mitchell, especially – have neither the stomach nor the haughty countenance to go all in when trying to denigrate the Pistons. Nor, for that matter, do they have the personnel to attack the rim with enough vigor.
Superstar guard James Harden, savvy though he still is, plays at half his old speed and struggles to get by Duncan Robinson (with apologies for the emphasis there).
And when the Pistons’ Ausar Thompson or Cade Cunningham have guarded Harden?
It has been, well, unusually cruel.
Those matchups should also be a reminder of who these Cavaliers are. They may yet come back and win this series. But it’d be surprising at this point, even though so many consider Cleveland’s roster to be superior.
The fouls don’t matter
Part of that is the NBA’s natural bias toward offense – folks putting the ball in the basket remains the principal goal.
And yet keeping folks from putting the ball in the basket seems pretty important, too, and on that front, the talent comparison tilts toward Detroit.
Mitchell no doubt figured he’d try to leverage that bias when he complained about officiating Tuesday. He understands what he and his teammates are up against. Well, unless he was the one who told a reporter who covers the Cavs that the Pistons weren’t in their class, and hubris has kept him from understanding what the Pistons truly bring.
But I doubt it. Besides, the whole not-in-our-class vibe doesn’t sound like Mitchell. And if he really thought that, then why lobby the refs?
As explosive and creative a scorer as Mitchell is, his go-to move relies more on interpretive dance than shoulder-to-sternum force; as impressive and unstoppable as his windmill-dribble-and-floater game can be, it’s rarely going to convince the refs to blow their whistle.
Mitchell probably knows this more than he’d like to let on, as he perhaps acknowledged when he told reporters this:
“I’m just not getting the calls. I don’t know why. I don’t flop, maybe that’s why,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “And this isn’t just a [tonight thing]. This has been the entire [playoffs], and it’s frustrating a little bit, but because I’m such a dynamic driver, right? But I can’t control that. So, if they’re not going to call it for me, I got to find a way to finish and do that.”
He finished more often in Game 2 than in Game 1 and finished with a game-high 31 points, mostly on those pretty windmill rip-through floaters and mid-range pullups. He shot nine free throws, too – seven more than he attempted in Game 1.
In that sense, his strategy … worked?
Likewise, Cleveland attempted 27 free throws to Detroit’s 20, a far better ratio, from the Cavs’ perspective, than Game 1’s 35-16 disparity.
And yet, it didn’t matter.
It’s the defense, not foul calls, that matters
Surely, that’s more frustrating than anything else. In the end, the lobbying – if it made a difference at all – helped flip the free throw attempts. But little else
That’s the easy assumption, anyway. The truth is never so black-and-white. The play on the court is where it’s revealed, and for a while Thursday night, Cleveland set better screens to free up Harden and Mitchell, and that opened more frequent paths to the paint.
But only for a while.
When those paths closed in the fourth quarter, and Harden and Mitchell were flailing and fading and avoiding contact nearly often as they sought it, the path to the free throw line dried up, too.
A long time ago, Jackson employed the work-the-refs-through-the-media strategy. He wanted more calls, yes, but he also meant to eviscerate the entire Bad Boys era. His effort no doubt contributed to the way those teams are remembered outside of Michigan, thanks to his Chicago Bulls getting the better of the Pistons eventually (not to mention the rest of the NBA for six out of eight years).
Yet that was mostly because he had Michael Jordan on his roster. And when you’ve got the GOAT – well, a GOAT – you get to rewrite history.
The Cavaliers have no such player, as good as Mitchell is. And ultimately, his plea proved useless.
Not because of how the game was called, but because it didn’t matter that Cleveland shot more free throws. When the Pistons swarm and teleport and behave as they’re all connected to the same central nervous system, there isn’t much these Cavaliers can do.
That, more than any off-the-court lament, is clear two games into this series – and no amount of postgame chatter is going to change that.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons won’t waste their time whining over refs; they’re too busy beating Cleveland
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
