Boston Celtics: 3 keys to victory over the Utah Jazz

Get the ball out of Donovan Mitchell’s hands

When Gordon Hayward left Salt Lake City in the summer of 2017 for the Boston Celtics, the belief was Utah was in the beginning stages of a long rebuild. Thanks to a few savvy moves on that past month’s draft night, the Jazz were able to trade for 13th overall pick Donovan Mitchell from the Denver Nuggets.

It is because of this move that the franchise has not skipped a beat since Hayward’s departure.

Now in season number three, Mitchell has been deemed an All-Star and has the Jazz looking at their third consecutive postseason berth (currently fifth in the West). While Basketball is, ultimately a team sport, it is because of Mitchell that the team has performed so successfully this season.

In turn, because of this, it is Mitchell whom the Boston Celtics should hone in on during tonight’s outing.

On the season the shooting guard is putting up career highs all across the board: 24.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists on 46 percent shooting from the floor and 37 percent shooting from deep. In their last outing, the biggest reason why the game was such a hard fought battle till the final minute was because of his impressive offensive production that night (led all scorers with 37 points) that matched Jayson Tatum nearly every step of the way.

For their best shot at winning tonight’s matchup, Boston must contain Mitchell as best they can. Lock him in on defense — could be wise to throw Marcus Smart his way for a majority of the game — and force him to give up the ball. While there are solid ballers around him like the Stifle Tower, Rudy Gobert and Joe Ingles, none of them can impact the outcome of a game quite like Donovan Mitchell can.

Because of this, I’d take my chances with forcing one of them to beat the C’s. Which brings us to our next key….