Cleveland Cavaliers player Donovan Mitchell had a daunting performance on the night of Monday to Tuesday against Chicago (145-134 ap), combining 71 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds.
The 26-year-old guard becomes just the sixth player in NBA history to reach 70 points in a single game.
What place should be given to such a feat, which Michael Jordan and LeBron James, for example, have never achieved, and to the many "hot shots" experienced by Luka Doncic, Klay Thompson and others in recent days, in history? basketball?
"To be honest, I'm playing very badly right now," said Donovan Mitchell on Saturday, after having chained a third game to 15 points or less in a week (5 of 16 on shots) against Chicago.
But the NBA is so crazy and unpredictable right now that two days later, the Cleveland Cavaliers guard cracked a historic performance against the same opponent.
71 points (at 22/34), 11 assists, 8 rebounds, plus an improbable decisive basket to snatch overtime, in which he scored 13 of his team's 15 points, that's a good thing for you.
It was necessary to fill 21 points behind and allow the Cavs (4th in the East), deprived of two key pieces, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, to win against the Bulls (145-134 ap).
To say that at halftime, Donovan Mitchell had scored “only” 16 points.
“This is what makes his performance unexpected, says Bastien Fontanieu, publication director of the basketball site TrahTalk, who followed the match live.
There, we see that all of a sudden, the guy has a big heat stroke, and we wonder how far the heat wave will go.
What is maddening is that the extraordinary has been almost trivialized for a few days in the NBA.
»
The boxes of Thompson and Embiid go almost unnoticed on Monday
Because in addition to the recital of the former partner of Rudy Gobert in Utah, the Slovenian Luka Doncic became on December 27 the first player in history to combine more than 60 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a game, before snap back 51 pawns for New Year's Eve, history.
Add to that, still Monday night, the 54 points, with 10 long-range shots, scored by Warriors gunslinger Klay Thompson against Atlanta (143-141 after two overtime), or even Joel's 42 points and 11 rebounds Embiid, even reduced in the back, against the Pelicans (120-111).
71 POINTS
8 REBOUNDS
11 PASSES
22/34 AT SHOT
7/15 3PM
18/23 FTM
No, we are not in a video game.
ᴅᴏɴᴏᴠᴀɴ ᴍɪᴛᴄʜᴇʟʟ ᴊʀ.
pic.twitter.com/I4E5PHAQW6
— NBA France (@NBAFRANCE) January 3, 2023
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Almost a trifle in this orgy of individual performances at the start of winter, which also saw King LeBron James score 47 points on Friday, the day of his 38th birthday (then 43 on Monday), or Zach LaVine (43 with Chicago) and Jordan Poole (41 with Golden State) also feast on Dec. 30.
So many figures that sting the eyes of Euroleague followers more than ever, where the Serbian Vasilije Micic (Anadolu Efes Istanbul) tops the scoring charts… with an average of 18.1 points.
"We expose ourselves to madness every night"
What place should therefore be given to the performances of current Martians, who fall from everywhere across the Atlantic, in the history of basketball?
Because yes, there is obviously something irrational in seeing Donovan Mitchell (29.3 points on average all the same this season), hit by the Blues with Team USA (79-89) in the quarter-finals of the 2019 World Cup ( despite his 29 points) explode the best performance of a LeBron James and a Kyrie Irving at their prime in the Cavs jersey (57 points), while entering a restricted circle of six players to have reached the 70 mark points, unlike Michael Jordan
himself
(stuck at 69).
We are in an era where the NBA is rubbing its hands because we are exposed to madness every night as there have never been so many talents and stars in the League, believes Bastien Fontanieu.
If you're not up one night, you may find yourself missing out on a moment of history like the likes of Doncic and Mitchell.
»
The reasons are obviously multiple to try to explain this period so favorable to the current monumental offensive cards, starting with the overall evolution of the American League.
"In the 1990s and 2000s, the game was much slower and the NBA did what was necessary to change that, especially in terms of arbitration," explains Bastien Fontanieu.
Understand that in addition to the possibility of an almost unlimited number of steps without being whistled a market, star attackers are particularly protected.
The referees complicit in the quest for spectacle
The killer stat, during this famous Cleveland-Chicago on Monday, is the 20/25 free throws achieved by Donovan Mitchell, who nevertheless only shoots 6 shots on average per game this season.
The hero of the night chained "and one" while benefiting from whistles for what would be akin to caresses on the arms, when we think back to the repeated attacks of Bill Laimbeer and the mythical Detroit Bad Boys on Michael Jordan at the end of the 1980s. Similarly, at 128-130 with 4.7 seconds left in regulation time, Donovan Mitchell deliberately missed a free throw in order to hope for an offensive rebound and the basket of the equalizer, like Luka Doncic last week.
Except that there, "Spida" crossed the line well before the ball touched the circle, to jump and snatch, from the top of his 185 cm,
Unsurprisingly, the refereeing trio granted this improbable equalizer, without even reviewing the video of a more than contentious action.
“The NBA referees are instructed to swallow their whistle in the money-time of the matches, indicates Bastien Fontanieu.
Before, there were star-friendly whistles, but the game was very choppy.
Today, the NBA is often similar to WWE wrestling: we let the show take over.
It is sometimes necessary to go in the direction of the script, and especially in the regular season, it is open bar so that young people can sign performances of phenomena.
“With more rigorous refereeing, Donovan Mitchell would probably have stopped at 56 points on Monday, and with the loss at the end…
A generation marked by Steph Curry
The phenomenon of starification of NBA players is obviously not new.
In 2017, the promising Devin Booker had signed, at only 20 years old, the trifle of 70 points during a Boston-Phoenix.
Despite the defeat against the Celtics (130-120), all the Suns had celebrated their young icon in the locker room, after having done everything to allow him to shine in the second half (51 points scored), sometimes despite a collective goal.
To see this brave Andre Drummond not making the slightest gesture to thwart a long-range shot from Donovan Mitchell, or Zach LaVine losing interest in the ball and turning his back on him on a crucial counter-attack in full overtime, we quickly understood Monday too that we were far from the big play-off battles, for what remains a regular season game among 82.
Above all, like the back of the Cavs on fire on Monday (7/15), the trivialization of shooting at (very) long distances mathematically makes individual carnage more accessible.
“Like so many others, Mitchell (26) is a bit of a child of Steph Curry, notes Bastien Fontanieu.
Shooting at 10m has become the norm for a whole generation of young players, who have carte blanche in their team.
The register of the unstoppable 2.16m center Wilt Chamberlain was slightly different when he reached 100 points in a game in 1962. A total that no one has ever come closer to than Kobe Bryant in January 2006, in a success against the Raptors (122-104) made legendary because of its unreal sheet of stats at 81 points (including 7/13 at 3 points).
“Mitchell and Robin Lopez combined for 72 points”
But be careful, because as Bastien Fontanieu points out, “all the stars are historically warming up just after Christmas, so we are not safe from anything”.
After all, we are talking about a League where French full-back Rodrigue Beaubois scored 40 points in 30 minutes of play in March 2010, and where unknowns to the general public like Mo Williams, Corey Brewer, Terrence Ross, Khris Middleton and Caris LeVert have all managed to cross the 50-pawn mark one day.
If there is one thing that has stood the test of time in the NBA, it is the humor of shadow players.
As Stacey King had done 34 years earlier, during a card from Michael Jordan, the pivot of the Cavs Robin Lopez split Monday with a message well felt: "I emphasize that Donovan Mitchell and Robin Lopez have combined for 72 points tonight.
This is also the entertainment of the NBA.
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