Is Donovan Mitchell ready for the Oklahoma City Thunder?

In December 2017, Donovan Mitchell announced that he had arrived. Through the first month of play the Utah Jazz rookie guard had some impressive moments, but not many were putting much stock in his play. That all changed as the calendar year came to a close. He began the month by dropping a career-high 41 points on the New Orleans Pelicans. He followed that up by scoring 20-plus points in five of his next seven games — including 26 against LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

But it all came to a head on Dec. 23 in a 14-point loss at home to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Mitchell scored 29 points on a efficient 12-of-16 shooting performance, the Thunder had no answer for the former Louisville guard. As the buzzer sounded the entire triumvirate of Oklahoma City star players circled around Mitchell and showering him with compliments and giving the young man some advice.

Fast forward to mid-April and those four players will once again come together, but this time it’s not pleasantries they’ll be sharing — it’s the win-or-go-home nature of the playoffs that brings them together now.

Oklahoma City managed to secure home court advantage in this series thanks to the fact the Jazz lost a road game to Portland on the last day of the season — not exactly, the scenario many thought would play out when the Thunder acquired Paul George and Carmelo Anthony this summer.

The Thunder finished the year with just one more win than they had last year when Westbrook was a one-man-band. The only trio that meshed for the entire season was double-digit points, rebounds, and assists averages, as last year’s MVP was able to do the unthinkable for a second straight year.

The additions of Anthony and George have been inconsistent at best. Anthony’s game has taken a huge dip. “Olympic Melo” is definitely still in Rio de Janeiro. George was a defensive hound all season, finishing second in the league in steals, However, his shot was off all season — the first half of the season was a struggle inside the arc and the second half of the year was the exact opposite.

For Utah, they experienced an addition by subtraction phenomena. The Jazz would certainly love for Gordon Hayward to still be part of their franchise, yet, they were able to take a leap from last year without him (and Rudy Gobert at times).

Head coach, Quin Snyder, has this team locked in. Their defense kept teams off the offensive glass (23.3 offensive rebounding rate allowed, third-best) and stifled their opponent’s half court possessions (fourth-least points surrendered in the halfcourt). With Ricky Rubio and Gobert in the starting lineup, it is easy to understand why the Jazz transformed maintained their status as one of the best defensive teams in the NBA this year.

Both Utah and Oklahoma City feature high-usage guards, Westbrook finished in the 100th percentile in usage rate and Mitchell wasn’t far, behind ranking in the 90th. In a meeting between two teams as equal as these, whichever one of these two are able to produce will likely mean victory.

That might seem like a lot to put on a rookie’s plate, but the numbers show that it actually doesn’t bode well for Westbrook. When defended by Ricky Rubio this season, NBA.com’s matchup stats show that Westbrook shot an horrific 22 percent on 3-pointers. Yet, Mitchell has had even more success against the Brodie. Westbrook’s 3-point percentage jumps from 22 to 25 percent, but his field goal percentage plummets down to an abysmal 38.9 percent when Mitchell is his main defender.

One reason that both Jazz guards have done a good job of corralling Westbrook during their regular season meetings is that they have Gobert in the paint waiting to clean up any mistake they should make. The Thunder never really committed to the Patrick Patterson at center idea, and Steven Adams isn’t going to be far enough away from the rim to keep Gobert from providing helpside rim protection.

With both of their go-to guys being excellent downhill attackers, 3-point shooting from the supporting cast will be critical. George was on fire early, but is either experiencing mechanical issues or has lost confidence in his shot. Meanwhile, after finishing third in 3-point percentage last season (44.1 percent) Joe Ingles had the fourth-highest 3-point field goal percentage this season (44 percnet).

This is another area that favors Utah, but not just because of Ingles being a marksman from the perimeter. The Thunder shot the eighth-highest percentage of their shots on corner 3-pointers, but Utah had the second-highest frequency of corner 3-point shots. Defensively, the Thunder allowed their opponents to shoot the most corner 3-pointers in the NBA; 8.8 percent of Oklahoma City opponents’ shots came from one of the corners.

Outside of the Philadelphia 76ers, the Jazz are one of the hottest teams entering the postseason. Not having home court advantage hurts and that is where the Thunder’s combination of experience and talent could give them a leg up on the Jazz.

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A simple gesture, welcoming Mitchell into a hierarchy of the NBA that not many ever achieve has become even bigger in the aftermath. Mitchell has been on record stating that it was George who pulled him aside during his pre-draft workouts against current pros and told him that he was ready to make the jump to the NBA. George saw something in Mitchell, something that we as fans have witnessed in year one. Now the Thunder must hope that they don’t see anything like it in the postseason if they want to extend their season beyond round one.