INDIANAPOLIS — Late Sunday night, following a third straight loss that temporarily dropped the Cavs outside the top 6 in the Eastern Conference, Donovan Mitchell had something to say.

Not to the media. To his teammates. Away from the cameras. Out of the spotlight.

“We gotta pick it up. If we want to be great, this ain’t it,” Mitchell said when asked about Sunday’s impassioned message to the group. “We were 20 games in and it’s like, what are we doing?

“This ain’t last year. I told you at the beginning of the year, they coming for us — as they should. They’re coming for your Defensive Player of the Year. They’re coming for my first team All-NBA. They coming for Kenny’s Coach of the Year. They coming for all that. We’re not the underdogs, we’re the hunted. We need to go out there and cont

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