The Miami Heat's newest random postseason hero emerged in the NBA Play-in

"He's a dog, he's a pitbull," said Tyler Herro about teammate Davion Mitchell, who exploded in OT of the Eastern Conference play-in tournament on Friday and lifted the Miami Heat to a playoff spot.

Mitchell was great all game long, but hit three 3-pointers in the extra frame, drew an offensive foul, and made the right play every time he had the ball.

We've seen this story plenty of times before; a role player for the Heat morphs into a Hall-of-Famer for about 10 games and changes the course of the season, only to revert back to a normal NBA player the next year. Davion Mitchell is the obvious candidate for that role in these playoffs. Cavs, beware.

Subscribe to The Whiteboard, FanSided’s daily email newsletter on everything basketball. If you like The Whiteboard, share it with a friend! If you don’t like The Whiteboard, share it with an enemy!

Davion Mitchell could join a line of Heat legends

No, not Dwyane Wade or Alonzo Mourning... I'm talking about Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin and Max Strus. While I don't want to downplay how solid Mitchell has been all year for the Heat... he was essentially an afterthought in a trade deadline deal. Going from that to making huge plays in the postseason — even if the "postseason" is the Eastern Conference play-in — deserves some props.

Mitchell isn't a nobody; he was an NCAA Champion at Baylor and a top ten pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. But his career has not gone as Sacramento (the team that drafted him) expected it to, and Miami is already his third NBA team. But if anyone loves a reclamation project, it's the Heat. And for some reason, those projects seem to come up huge in the playoffs. They can keep getting away with this, to be honest. And they probably will.