Cavaliers Notes: Mitchell, Merrill, Allen, Conference Finals

Donovan Mitchell has enjoyed plenty of memorable playoff moments during his nine years in the NBA, but he never advanced past the second round until the Cavaliers beat the Pistons in Game 7 Sunday night. After contributing 26 points, eight assists and six rebounds in the 31-point victory, Mitchell called it “a breath of fresh air” to be heading to the conference finals, writes Jamal Collier of ESPN.

“Even last year, when we lost to Indiana, we had our goals set on getting to the Finals. We’re just one step closer,” Mitchell said. “But yeah, it’s been almost a decade of running into the same issue. So for sure, I personally, and as a team, we can breathe a little bit.”

Playoff disappointments followed Mitchell from Utah to Cleveland and were especially acute last season when the Cavs were ousted in the second round as the No. 1 seed. They appeared to be headed in that direction again after dropping Game 6 at home on Friday, but they bounced back with a dominant performance, controlling Sunday’s contest from the opening minutes. It was an important victory for a team that was likely headed for major changes with another early exit.

“It does mean something,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “This was the next step for us. First day of training camp, I put up the playoff record over the last three years, 11-15. I’ve been saying all year we have a lot to prove. We still have more to prove. That’s the next part of it, but we proved something to ourselves, that we could take that another step.”

There’s more on the Cavaliers:

• The team’s playoff path hasn’t been easy, going seven games in each of the first two rounds against a pair of physical opponents, but the players see some advantages to all the challenges, Collier adds. “Listen, you’d love to sweep every series, but I think these have been great opportunities for us to get to know each other a little better, develop some more belief and just continue to get better,” Sam Merrill said. “And that’s what the playoffs are about. You got to keep getting better, make adjustments, and then find a way to win.”
• Jarrett Allen, who has been criticized in the past for not delivering in the playoffs, turned in his second straight impressive Game 7, finishing with 23 points and seven rebounds. He received a motivational text from team chairman Dan Gilbert two hours before the game, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reveals in a subscriber-only story, and Gilbert talked to Atkinson about Allen’s importance at a team dinner Saturday night. “He goes, ‘You know who the key to this whole thing is?’ I was thinking (James) Harden, Mitchell. He goes, ‘The key to this whole thing, the spark, is Jarrett Allen. I said, ‘Really?’” Atkinson said after Sunday’s game. “Sometimes you have people who observe from afar. Plus, Dan knows the team well and he knows these guys.”
• The Cavs won’t get much rest time before facing the Knicks in Game 1 of the conference finals Tuesday night. They brought oversized suitcases on Saturday’s team charter with the expectation of heading to New York instead of just spending two days in Detroit, Fedor states in a separate story (subscription required). “For us, we can’t really look at it and say, ‘All right, we did it, we got to conference finals.’ That’s not the end all,” Mitchell said. “We’ve still got more to do. It’s all about the belief in the locker room. We’ve got each other’s back and that’s the biggest thing. I believe we’ve all been a believer since day one, and we’ve got more work to do. We’re always going to have bumps in the road, but it’s how we stick together. We’ll go to war with each other any day of the week.”