A devastated Donovan Mitchell said he was “in shock” when the Jazz’s season came to an end on Mike Conley’s missed 3 at the buzzer Tuesday night in Game 7, but Mitchell also acknowledged that this is “just the beginning” for Utah.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Only minutes after Donovan Mitchell was lying face down on the court inside AdventHealth Arena, he plopped himself down in front of a video camera, his eyes still red from tears he shed after his Utah Jazz saw their season end with a heartbreaking 80-78 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 7 of their first-round NBA playoff series Tuesday night. But while Mitchell said he was devastated about the way things slipped away from the Jazz after they not only held a 3-1 lead in this series but led by 15 points in the second half of Game 5, he was proud that his team survived everything it has gone through over the past few months. He also was ready to get back to work. “We’re ready to fight through anything,” said Mitchell, who had 22 points in Game 7 but shot just 9-for-22 and also had nine turnovers, including one with less than 10 seconds remaining. “That’s always been the case. It’s a character thing to come back the way we did. We’re ready to compete through anything. For myself… I can’t lie to you, I was surprised by certain little things that I’ve done and accomplished. But it’s nothing I haven’t worked on. There were criticisms of what I could do on the offensive and defensive end, and I feel like I’ve taken a step in the right direction. “This isn’t the last of it. This is me scratching the surface. I know what I can do, how hard I’ve worked, how hard this team has worked. This won’t be the end of it. That’s what’s fueling me. This ain’t the end. This is just the beginning. I’m ready to go hoop again right now. I think we all are. This is just the beginning.” It was fitting that the Jazz’s season ended in a Game 7 that came down the absolute last second. The final sequence saw Nuggets guard Gary Harris poke the ball away from Mitchell with 8.4 seconds left, only for Denver’s Torrey Craig to miss a potential game-clinching layup at the other end, allowing Jazz guard Mike Conley one last shot to win the series — only for his 3-point shot to go halfway down before rimming out. As it did, Mitchell — who became one of four players to score at least 50 points twice in a series, along with Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson and Denver’s Jamal Murray, who also did so in this series — collapsed in a heap on the court. “To be honest, I [was] in shock,” Mitchell said with a shake of his head, describing what was going through it in that moment. “That was it. You work so hard to get to a point that we got to, and we were this close.
