The Cavaliers will be short-handed when they take on Portland.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be short-handed on Sunday afternoon when they welcome the Portland Trail Blazers to town. They will be without the services of All-Star shooting guard Donovan Mitchell. He will be missing the game due to rest.
This will be only the fourth game Mitchell has missed this season. The Cavs are 3-0 this year without him.
Missing Sunday’s game shortly after scoring 41 to defeat the Celtics on Friday follows a pattern for this season. The other three games that Mitchell has missed have come two days before playing the Celtics (Nov. 17), a day after playing the Oklahoma City Thunder (Jan. 9), and a day after playing the Celtics (Feb. 5).
Darius Garland has stepped up in the three previous games that Mitchell has missed. He scored 25 in a comfortable win over the Charlotte Hornets, dropped 40 to defeat the Toronto Raptors, and hit a buzzer-beating logo three to defeat the Detroit Pistons. We’ll see if that pattern also continues Sunday afternoon.
Mitchell is having a phenomenal year and is in line to make All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. He will need to meet the 65-game minimum threshold to do so, but he should make that with ease. Mitchell will need to play in just nine of Cleveland’s 22 remaining games after Sunday to reach that threshold.
On the season, Mitchell is averaging 24.3 points and 4.8 assists per game on .456/.395/.822 shooting splits.
The Cavaliers will be fully healthy otherwise. The only other inactives are two-way players Luke Travers, Emoni Bates, and JT Thor.
The Trail Blazers will be without Deandre Ayton (knee), Matisse Thybulle (ankle), and Robert Williams III (knee). Deni Avdija (quad) and Jerami Grant (knee) are questionable for the game.
Tip-off between the Cavs and Blazers is 3:30 on Sunday.