Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic punished Ty Lue and his Los Angeles Clippers during their first round series in the 2021 playoffs. Now in the second round, it's Utah Jazz scorer Donovan Mitchell who is making the Clips suffer.
The Clippers, however, cannot use the same strategy they had on Doncic to stop Mitchell. After all, as Lue said it, the Jazz guard is a different beast on his own.
“He's faster, and it's hard to try to blitz him, so we just gotta do a better job … one on one,” Lue said on Mitchell and his difference from Doncic, per Mirjam Swanison of the Southern California News Group.
That is no disrespect to Luka Doncic's game. After all, he made life hard for the Clippers with the variety of ways he can score the ball and his ability to involve his teammates.
As for Donovan Mitchell, unlike Luka, he is a freaky athlete who can explode to the rim and dominate games with his athleticism. He has a different playing style that appears to be effective against the Clippers, with the Jazz up 2-0 in the series prior to Game 3 on Saturday.
Mitchell is averaging 41.0 points on 52.5 percent shooting against the Clippers so far, so it goes without saying that LA is struggling to contain him despite having two of the best two-way players in the league in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
It remains to be seen how the Clippers will stop Mitchell, or even if they can do it, but they certainly need to adjust quickly or be doomed by their own failure.
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