Donovan Mitchell on Cavs fans booing: ‘If you don’t play well, that’s what you get’

CLEVELAND — Not nearly enough went right for the Cavaliers in their home loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday, and a big part of the blame belongs on the Cavs themselves.

But star guard Donovan Mitchell said you have to learn from the bad losses and keep your head up.

“You have to analyze different things as a group, individually, how we can be better,” he said. “But we’ll be fine.”

That said, Mitchell suggested he knows the time is nearing for some consistency and becoming the team the Cavs believe they can be.

“We said this was going to be kind of a championship team and we’re not playing like it,” he said. “What are we 10-9 right now? … This is probably the worst loss of the season I wanna say. And let’s go. Starts with myself. 

“We’ll be fine. We’ll fix it.”

Mitchell scored 23 points to lead the Cavs, but went just 1-of-9 shooting on 3-pointers in a rare off night. Cleveland allowed its 16-point lead to become a 12-point deficit and never recovered.

That’s about when fans started booing the Cavs, and it never really stopped. Mitchell said he has no problem with that.

“It’s part of the game to be honest,” he said. “You come in expecting to perform a certain way and we didn’t do that. That’s on us and at the end of the day to prevent the boos, and we didn’t do that.

“So that’s part of it. If you don’t play well, that’s what you get. I was booing when I was a kid too. So I understand.”

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“This is a turning point. Let’s go. We’ll be fine. We’ll fix it.”

Donovan Mitchell’s candor is why #Cavs stay even-keeled. Showing emotion is good, but understanding how to handle these terrible nights & make sure you take something away so it doesn’t happen again is paramount. pic.twitter.com/VTKpZ26hbH

— Spencer Davies (@SpinDavies) December 1, 2023