It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the Miami Heat just wrapped up a much-needed practice at their Kaseya Center facility. The Heat are in a free fall in the standings, down to six games under .500 and ninth in the Eastern Conference. Everybody feels it.
Four straight losses, including one against the bottom-dwelling Charlotte Hornets on Monday night in which they blew another double-digit lead. The Heat have now lost 17 games in which they’ve led by double digits this season. Several of those collapses happened in the fourth quarter. For a team that has long prided itself on execution, something is missing.
There are three half-court setups on the practice floor. In the middle one, Davion Mitchell is defending rookie Keshad Johnson during a 1 on 1 drill. Mitchell’s right forearm is pressed against Johnson’s back while his left arm waves between Johnson’s left shoulder and the basket. He’s screaming in Johnson’s ear.
Johnson spins to his left and misses a tough jumper. Mitchell flexes, extends his jaw and walks to the end of the line to wait another turn. He’s practically foaming.
It’s this intensity that exuded from Mitchell during his 2021 national championship run at Baylor and impressed scouts on his way to becoming the ninth pick in that summer’s draft. It also caught the Heat organization’s eye ahead of last month’s trade deadline. With Jimmy Butler gone, the Heat are retooling. Mitchell, a restricted free agent this summer, has been a seamless fit.
“I always wanted to play for Miami,” Mitchell told me. “It's my culture.”
Our conversation happened to the side of the practice court. He wore a Heat T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, a Baylor Bears wristband on his left arm, and was still sweating as we spoke.
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
All U Can Heat: People know about what you can do on defense but your offensive game doesn’t get talked about as much. You approach things like an old-school point guard, which you don’t see a lot of these days. Where does that come from?
Mitchell: That's a good question. You know, it's crazy. When I first got into the league, the first person I met was Chris Paul. I had dinner with him and his family, and we just chatted. He's a guy that I always looked up to. First of all, because he's 6 foot. He dominated the league. He's a Hall of Famer and made himself into one of the best point guards who ever played the game. So looking up to him, having conversations with him and learning the way to study film, learning the way to be effective during the game. Being a winning point guard, no matter the situation, no matter if I'm missing shots, making shots, just finding ways to win.
I'm still trying to figure it out here, which is going to come. I'm not even worried about it because, what is this, my 10th or 11th game here? All I know is we didn’t have enough time together to find that chemistry yet. But it's coming. Every game is close. You kind of want to lose them now instead of later in the postseason. Then you don't want to lose those close games.
When you think about these close-game situations, what is your main takeaway? What are the things that you're learning in these close games?
It's just mental mistakes. We got to figure out how to close games. We're in [it] every single game. It's the fourth quarter. We lose a little bit of focus. We stop putting our foot on the gas. We get complacent, comfortable, and teams are really good. It's hard to win this league. Somebody can make three threes in a row and change the game. Miles Bridges made two threes yesterday in a row, and it changed the game.
The Chris Paul story, I mean, he wasn't in Sacramento. There's not a Baylor connect. Why was he the first guy that you met?
My first agency was CAA. Me and him had the same agent. When I told him my favorite point guard is Chris Paul, he was like, ‘Oh, snap. I have Chris Paul too, so I want y'all to meet.’ He makes that connection and we took our relationship from here.
Anybody else that you looked up to when you were getting started?
Guys who are similar to me, like Jrue Holiday. He's a guy that I look up to, had conversations with. I haven't really had dinner with him yet, but definitely looking forward to that. Just to pick his brain on things. How he’s been effective on winning teams, how he’s won a championship. What did he do? What role did he play? How can he make his teammates better defensively, not just him? Because I feel like individually, like you said, I'm good defensively. How do I make my teammates better? How do I help them out more? How do I be effective off the ball more? Things like that, that I can do to help us win games.
You came in and took on a leadership role. You're very vocal and carry yourself a certain way. I'm just wondering if you’ve always been like that.
I work extremely hard on my game. I watch a lot of film, I play really hard, so people will listen to me. It's not like people can't listen to me because I watch the film, I do the things that I'm saying. If it's someone else that's not doing the things that they're saying, it's like, how can I listen to you? You're not even doing it.
But when I say something, I know I do it. Sometimes we make mistakes, obviously, but like, nine times out of 10, if I say, ‘Yo, box out.’ Like, I box out. So why can't you do it? So it's that type of thing, that mentality I have that I just work extremely hard so I feel confident enough to say what I got to say.
Do you always wear the Baylor wristband all the time, or is that just because it's March?
No, no, I've been wearing this. I got this last summer at a football game. I have multiple. So if this one breaks, I have five more.
Just school pride? Does it do anything else for you?
I mean, it got me here. Honestly, Baylor took me in and let me play my game because I was struggling at Auburn. They helped me be a professional, let me play my game, and it’s the reason why I was a top-10 pick.
Your thoughts on Kel’el (Ware)? You seem to talk to him a lot on the side and stuff like that. What are your first impressions of him?
He's really talented, he works extremely hard, and the fact that he's making mistakes now is really good because he's doing it on a winning team where we want to win. So in years to come, when you really want to win, he knows he's in that mentality. If he was on a losing team where it was what they call ‘tanking’ and he's making the mistakes, [the organization is] not really saying much, right? You're like, ‘Okay, keep doing this.’ And he's not getting better. But to be on the Miami Heat with Bam (Adebayo) in front of him, taking him under his wing, with a guy like Tyler (Herro), Kevin Love, older people that can help him out, he's gonna be really, really good, and I can't wait to see it.
Now that you've been here a few weeks, has anything surprised you that maybe you didn't expect?
I always wanted to play for Miami. It's my culture, the way I carry myself, the way I play. It's like a Heat culture thing. I always wanted to play for them. Nothing really surprised me yet. Everything that I thought it was going to be, it is. I really thought it was going to be like a military. You hear all these stories like, ‘Oh, you got to do this, you can't do this.’ And when you get here, that's out the window. That was a lie. Maybe it was true a long time ago, but not now. [Erik Spoelstra] is more chill, which is okay.
Like I said before, the mistakes we're making now are really helpful. We're not going to make those same mistakes in the playoffs or the play-in. Whatever situation we're in, we're not going to make those same mistakes. So I'm glad that he's not being military. He lets us make these decisions because, at the end of the day, we're on the court. He lets us try to figure out how to win. He's putting us in the position to win. We just got to figure it out.
You’re probably not thinking about this right now, but you're a restricted free agent this offseason. You said you've always wanted to play for Miami. Is it fair to assume that you'd like to stay here?
I try not to think about it so much because then I'm not thinking about winning. I'm just trying to be in the present moment. It’s today, and it's tomorrow against the Clippers, and we go from there. Everything is going to work itself out.