Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell made his anticipated return to Utah to play his former team the Jazz on Tuesday night and despite dropping 46 points in the game, the Jazz came back to take the victory.
Mitchell spent his first five seasons with Utah.
“I thought our guys just really dug in, stayed the course and stayed focused on the little things,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said following the game (h/t ESPN).
“I was really comfortable,” Mitchell, who passed the 40 point mark for the second time in five games, said. “It wasn’t weird. It was just like playing as I have here for the last five years. The reception was phenomenal, and I’m appreciative of it.”
Per the Elias Sports Bureau, Mitchell is the seventh player in NBA history with 40 or more points in his first road game against a former team, and is the second among those players to lose, with the other being Nick Van Exel during his return to Los Angeles to play the Lakers.
“He was Donovan,” Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He was trying to will us through it.”
