“He’s busting your ass.”
Donovan Mitchell knows this already. He watched as his man drove past him, and he knows the score. But just in case he didn’t, Rudy Gobert—Utah’s shot-ending center and the presumptive Defensive Player of the Year—is letting the rookie hear it. “He's scored four or five straight,” Gobert tells Mitchell. “That can't happen.”
Gobert doesn’t always have the softest conversational touch, but these particular comments are actually an expression of understanding. “He knows,” Mitchell said later, “that's how I respond.” Tell Mitchell of his failings in no uncertain terms, and he will go out of his way to prove that they do not exist.