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As Tyler Herro led the Miami Heat past the Chicago Bulls in the play-in tournament with his 38 points, there's no doubt he will be the main talking point of the game and for good reason. However, a closer look at the Heat's win over the Bulls in the play-in tourney would show the immense defensive effort which displayed the great game from Davion Mitchell.
In the multi-team trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, Mitchell was sent to Miami from the Toronto Raptors, where his defense has been a huge plus. Mitchell would speak about the game plan of slowing down and stopping Chicago's downhill offense.
“We came into the game knowing that the two main guys are gonna try to drive the paint, trying to create some chaos,” Mitchell said via video from the team. “I think that the biggest thing is we switch, we helped one another, was in the gaps, just they didn't see the openings like they used to see. I think we did a really good job. We played them three times, and they've been doing the same thing, so we were ready for this game.”
For the Heat, the offense and defense work off each other, but Mitchell made an impact late in the game when the Bulls were starting to make a run for a comeback. Mitchell's defense had other plans as he stuffed a shot attempt from Coby White, which forced them to lose momentum.
PUT DAVION MITCHELL IN THE ALL DEFENSE TEAM. pic.twitter.com/BxTNekzcpC
— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) April 17, 2025
Still, Mitchell would credit Herro's huge night, even saying he's “one of the best players in the world.”
“Tyler [is] one of the best players in the world. It's hard to stop him,” Mitchell said. “I mean, we've got a lot of people on our team that can score the ball.”
Davion: “Tyler's one of the best players in the world. It's hard to stop him. We got a lot of people in our team that can score the ball, so you can't double him the whole game.” pic.twitter.com/u2VZKeccX6
— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) April 17, 2025
Heat's Bam Adebayo gives high regards to Davion Mitchell
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While the Heat look to achieve play-in tournament history, the team will need Mitchell and their other supporting cast to come up huge on both sides of the ball. Besides the electric defense, Mitchell finished Wednesday night with 15 points on five of five shooting from the field to go along with nine assists while having a +19 on the floor.
His outing would garner the attention of Bam Adebayo who has used the nickname “pitbull” for Mitchell due to his aggressiveness on offense and defense, especially how he attacks the paint on the former side. Adebayo would go as far as to say that Mitchell “should definitely be on somebody's defensive team.”
“He should definitely be on somebody's defensive team. He does the small things,” Adebayo said. “Obviously, it goes unnoticed because of who Davion is, but to us, he's a very valuable key to how we play defense.”
Bam on Davion: “He should be on somebody's defensive team. He does the small things. Obviously it goes unnoticed because of who Davion is, but he's a very valuable key to how we play defense.” pic.twitter.com/JyTVQhnCBc
— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) April 17, 2025
At any rate, Miami looks to provide the same intensity when they face the Atlanta Hawks in the play-in tournament on Friday night for the chance to make the playoffs.
