{"id":827289,"date":"2025-03-24T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=827289"},"modified":"2025-03-24T11:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:03:10","slug":"darius-garland-donovan-mitchell-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/slam-255\/darius-garland-donovan-mitchell-cover-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Believe in the Land: Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell on Cavaliers’ Dominance, Doubters and Championship Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Can\u2019t play together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToo small.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just another day in Cleveland. It\u2019s a Saturday afternoon inside the Cavaliers\u2019 practice facility, and Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are addressing the elephant in the room we\u2019re now sitting in. Moments before, members of the team had been on the practice courts, running through individual skill workouts and shooting sessions as reggae music blasted through the speakers. The only thing that can be heard now is the Cavs\u2019 backcourt keeping it real about the public\u2019s perception of the NBA and what\u2019s been the difference-maker for them this season. Then the question gets brought up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the craziest or most absurd thing that people have said about you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018not being able to play together\u2019 I think was definitely the toughest one, because they don\u2019t give it a chance, you know?\u201d Don says. \u201cJaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are another duo in this League, it took them eight years to win a championship. It takes time. Not saying we\u2019re them, not saying they are us\u2026Jamal Murray and Jokic. AD and Bron. It takes time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of those guys won titles overnight, and they all had to deal with their own fair share of criticism and sky-high expectations to make it there. Since LeBron James led Cleveland to their first-ever title in 2016, the franchise has been on the rebuild. And over the years, there haven\u2019t been many who believed the Cavs could be as good as they are right now. Not when Garland arrived as a first-round pick in 2019, or when they acquired Jarrett Allen from the Nets via a four-team trade in 2021, or when they drafted Evan Mobley that summer with the third overall pick. When Mitchell arrived prior to the start of the 2022-23 season via a trade from the Jazz, there were doubts about whether he and Garland, two ball-dominant guards, could even be successful together. Despite all of this, the Cavs finished with a 51-31 record, the franchise\u2019s highest win total since the 2016-17 season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, that same core four has managed to lead the Cavs to an even better record, which is 55-10 as we go to press. It takes time to build the type of rhythm they\u2019re playing with. \u201cI think people fail to realize that,\u201d says Mitchell, who is averaging 24.2 ppg. \u201cThey think that you\u2019re supposed to just click and vibe, but obviously, we haven\u2019t got a chip yet. We got some work to do, but we\u2019re headed in the right direction, and that\u2019s all you can ask for\u2014just continue to take the proper step forward.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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COP THE MAGAZINE<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

And with their same core, the Cavs are now two-stepping their way to the playoffs under new head coach Kenny Atkinson. When Atkinson arrived to replace J.B. Bickerstaff, he reimagined the Cavs\u2019 motion offense with an emphasis on free-flowing movement, quick reads, cutting and creativity. DG and Spida set the tempo in the backcourt. Garland is a shifty point guard who moves, in his own words, \u201clike a dancer,\u201d with fancy footwork, spin moves and speed, while Mitchell is explosive and groovy with the way he weaves down the lane for a bucket.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just like to dance with the ball,\u201d says DG. \u201cI\u2019m a dancer\u2026I just use my shiftiness, my quickness, and then I like to give [Mitchell] the ball, because he\u2019s just so explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then there\u2019s the rest of the Cavs\u2019 ensemble, which includes seven-footers Allen and Mobley who cause havoc in the paint. Allen is constantly moving and leaves defenders dizzy and distracted as he sets screens and rolls to the basket, while Mobley is an All-Star who crashes the boards with a fury and, as we\u2019ve seen this year, Euro steps his way to the rim like a guard. With Isaac Okoro, Max Strus and newly-acquired De\u2019Andre Hunter (a trade that happened just the day before our cover shoot) to balance out the scoring, the Cavs have so much range<\/em> as the No. 1 offense in the NBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in a long time, what\u2019s being said about them isn\u2019t, well, bad. But don\u2019t think they forgot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe got a lot of hate last year,\u201d Garland says, to which Mitchell adds: \u201cFrom the same people that\u2019s [saying] really nice things about us. Appreciate it.<\/em>\u201d It goes without saying that public perception controls the narrative in the NBA. In today\u2019s world, this is all happening online, where people only pay attention to what\u2019s being curated on their feeds, from game highlights to hot takes from media personalities and podcast hosts. The casuals are so lost in the scroll, they only pay attention to who is still standing in June, rather than actually watching a team rise to the occasion throughout an 82-game season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really look at the NBA game as, like, it\u2019s 2K for real,\u201d Mitchell says. \u201cHe\u2019s never played with a ball-dominant guard, and I haven\u2019t either, so that takes time for us to continue doing what [we do]. [Fifty-one] games the first year. That\u2019s success, and people don\u2019t look at us as that, but that\u2019s success in itself. OK, we failed in the playoffs. Cool, next year, boom<\/em>. Everybody gets hurt, different things, but we finally win a playoff series, first time. That\u2019s another step. Now we\u2019re at the top of the League, but at the end of the day, this really don\u2019t mean nothing until we do something in the playoffs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seeing is believing, and when the Cavs played the reigning champs on Feb. 28, everyone watched to see what they were about. Despite Boston\u2019s 25-3 lead to start the game, the Cavs went on a 41-22 run and dominated the fourth quarter. They never got flustered, and Mitchell especially turned things up. With two minutes left, he literally soared to the basket past Sam Hauser and above Al Horford to draw a foul. By the time he landed back on the ground, his teammates on the sideline were already making their way toward him to dap him up in excitement. Mitchell finished the game with 41 points in the Cavs\u2019 123-116 win over the Celtics. According to StatMuse, he tied LeBron James for the most games (12) in Cavaliers history with at least 40 points and 5 threes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen he turns up, starts flexing and starts clapping dumb hard, starts talking to the crowd, I love that Don,\u201d says Garland. \u201cThat\u2019s the Spida we all need, for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story of the Cavs\u2019 backcourt duo actually started long before they teamed up in The Land. Mitchell hosted Garland as a recruit at Louisville back in the day (DG ended up going one-and-done at Vanderbilt). Years later, they worked out together during the summer prior to the 2022-23 season; Mitchell happened to be in Miami with his trainer, Ronnie Taylor, who asked if the Cavs\u2019 PG could join them. The meet-up was pure coincidence, as neither of them knew what was going on behind the scenes in the Jazz and Cavs\u2019 front offices. \u201c[Donovan] was just so locked in the entire workout, like, if he missed a shot, he wanted to just do the whole set over again,\u201d Garland says. \u201cIf he missed two in a row, he was doing a sprint back and forth and coming right back to the set. So, it was like, just his work ethic, his mindset, he wants to be great, the best version of himself and one of the best players to play this game.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitchell was impressed by Garland, too. \u201cI\u2019ve never had to go shot for shot with somebody like that in a workout, like really try to beat the person that you\u2019re working out with. That was my first real moment where I was like, He\u2019s like that<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Garland has emerged as a poised point guard who\u2019s been able to battle through adversity, the loss of his grandmother and injury, including a fractured jaw that forced him to miss 19 games last season and go through a grueling recovery process that included a liquid diet, causing him to lose 12 pounds. DG has since then bounced back and is currently averaging 21 ppg this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was away from the guys last year for almost two months, and that\u2019s when I was really at my lowest,\u201d he says of the injury. \u201cI couldn\u2019t talk to them, they\u2019d FaceTime me after a big win, and I\u2019m just sitting there, like, Yay, can\u2019t talk<\/em>. That was tough for me, but right now, just being around the guys, it\u2019s some real brotherhood over here. It\u2019s like a grown man AAU team. We\u2019re always around each other. We\u2019re always laughing, making jokes, going out to eat with each other. We had sweet potato pie on the plane yesterday. It\u2019s a real family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They hype each other up like one, too. When I bring up Garland\u2019s epic buzzer- beater from the Pistons logo on Feb. 5, Mitchell interrupts DG before he can say a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was trying to [be] PG all interview. Man, that was a f–k you to everybody. That\u2019s what that was. That pose, all that was on\u2014I\u2019m sorry. I know, I know <\/em>I shouldn\u2019t swear. I\u2019m trying my best, but like, that\u2019s exactly what that was. I felt that, too. That\u2019s why I went nuts [after]. Somebody was talking smack\u2014I won\u2019t curse again\u2014the whole game and I just felt like, [he had] a lot of pent up, [like], This is what I really do, and y\u2019all really playing with me. And I should have ended the game about 10 minutes prior, but we ain\u2019t gonna talk about that. But like, you know what? Since we\u2019re here, I\u2019m gonna go ahead and do this. Forget the play that we drew up, Coach. I got it.<\/em> So that\u2019s what that was. He ain\u2019t gonna say it like that, but I\u2019m gonna say it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll talk a little bit of shit,\u201d DG, who was named an All-Star this year, says of the game-winner. \u201cIt was against our former coach, too, which made it like 1000 times better\u2026That was something that was totally different.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was basically, like, everybody that was talking noise, just sit here and watch us,\u201d Don chimes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The playoffs are just around the corner, too, which means everything they\u2019re doing now is in preparation for their ultimate goal of winning a championship. It was Mitchell who once told me in Utah that \u201cwinning takes care of everything in this League,\u201d but it\u2019s clear now that it\u2019s a sentiment he shares with his backcourt mate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil we have this parade in Cleveland, [and I\u2019m] on the floats and [have] a ring on my finger,\u201d Garland says, \u201cwe haven\u2019t done anything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SHOP THE COLLECTION<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Portraits by Matthew Coughlin<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Can\u2019t play together.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cToo small.\u201d  Just another day in Cleveland. It\u2019s a Saturday afternoon inside the Cavaliers\u2019 practice facility, and Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are addressing the elephant in the room we\u2019re now sitting in. Moments before, members of the team had been on the practice courts, running through individual skill workouts and shooting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":424,"featured_media":827315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65371],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-827289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slam-255"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827289"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827314,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827289\/revisions\/827314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827289"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=827289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}