Rockets guard Eric Gordon will be the primary defender on Jazz guard Donavan Mitchell, per head coach Mike D’Antoni.
Mitchell averaged 23.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.4 steals on 53.7% true shooting this season. Out of all Rockets, Gordon saw the most time defending Mitchell this season and was pretty effective against him. D’Antoni noted that many guys will see time on Mitchell.
“He’s an unbelievable offensive player,” said D’Antoni at practice. “With the great players, a lot of times it’s on them, but you can make it hard. You don’t want to foul him, you want to stay down, and you try to push him to a weaker hand. Having said that, he’s still going to score and do his damage. You just try and limit as much as you can.”
Gordon went into a little more detail as to how he plans to slow Mitchell down.
“He has the full package because he can drive and he can shoot the three,” said Gordon. “With all good scorers, you try to be as physical as possible and be able to predict what he’s going to do. I’d like to see how many contested jump shots he can make.”
The Rockets play the Jazz in Houston on Sunday at 8:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on TNT.
