Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell underscores the team's reliance on him to win games, which is becoming a concerning trend for the 2025-26 team
If basketball teams were evaluated on DEFCON levels, the 2025-26 Cleveland Cavaliers have officially reached level one. After a 119-111 overtime loss to the lowly Charlotte Hornets, how could they not be?
The comments from Donovan Mitchell after the game, were damning.
“I had one of those nights, on a night, on a situation where I'm not allowed to have one of those nightsm" he asserted. "I feel like if I play better, we win that game. I don't want to put that on anything else. Put this one on me. We competed, we fought, but I played poorly on both ends of the floor."
It's admirable that Mitchell is so willing to fall on the sword for his teammate. The best players normally do. But behind those words, perhaps unintentionally, is a cry for help.
Mitchell should be able to have off nights without it completely demoralizing the team. Cleveland is simply relying on Mitchell way too much to bail them out night in and night out, and drag them to the finish line of games.
In fairness, some of this has been out of necessity. Injuries have ravaged the wine and gold this season, to the point where the projected starting lineup to begin the season of Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and De'Andre Hunter have played just 43 minutes together this season.
Evan Mobley became the latest victim of this injury epidemic, with the team announcing over the weekend that he'll miss 2-4 weeks with a calf strain. The injuries seem to be unrelenting right now, and there's some important context added there, as to why the Cavs have struggled out of the gate.
It also can't be ignored, however, that effort has been an issue on both ends of the floor. So much so that the team candidly revealed that a player-led film session took place over the in-season tournament layoff last week.
It was supposed to spark some changes, or at least invoke a more inspired team overall. The two games since have instead invoked more frustration as Cleveland has struggled against the NBA's bottom feeders.
On Friday, it took a season-high 48-point performance from Mitchell, and a 45-point offensive explosion by the Cavs to hold off the four-win Washington Wizards. Going to overtime with the – at the time – seven-win Hornets two days later was bad enough. Then they lost.
There's no denying that Mitchell's brilliance has been fun to watch. He's in the midst of producing the best season of his career at the moment and will be undeniably in the MVP conversation all season long if he remains on this ridiculous pace.
It's simply not a sustainable, winning formula for Cleveland, though, if they have any hope of enjoying an extended stay in the playoffs next spring.
Somethings gotta give.
Maybe, when guys start getting healthy, it will be better. Maybe things will click, and the coming-to-Jesus meeting will birth the necessary changes this team needs to get back on track. The fact that not much has changed in the two games since isn't a good look.
And so, for now, Mitchell's admission that his off night cost the Cavaliers on Sunday underscores a no longer ignorable flaw in the machine. Something has to give. Their over-reliance on Mitchell is an undeniably bad habit that's teetering on defining the 2024-25 Cavs as a whole.