With the Cleveland Cavaliers’ three-game losing streak in the rear-view mirror after a solid wins over the Detroit Pistons and Miami Heat, the East’s best team will set their eyes on one of just two teams that has beaten them twice this year: the slumping Atlanta Hawks, who have lost six straight games since replacing Clint Capela in the starting lineup with Onyeka Okongwu.
In Cleveland’s 126-106 win yesterday over the Miami Heat, Donovan Mitchell scored 34 points on 14-for-23 shooting from the field and five-for-11 from deep. He’d been in a prolonged shooting slump prior to that; in the first 12 games of January, he shot just 41.6% from the field and 34.3% from three, dropping his season accuracy below the 40% threshold for the first time since the 10th game of the season.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Cavaliers are 10-point favorites and the total is set for 239.5. Below, I’ve highlighted my favorite prop bets centered around Spida.
Best Donovan Mitchell Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Donovan Mitchell Most Points (+190)
I’m not sure if Mitchell’s hot shooting performance last night means that his slump is over, or whether he’s going to drop 30+ points again with Darius Garland — who earned a well-deserved rest day yesterday — active. But I am confident that, even though the Hawks have posted the league’s third-best defensive rating since Okongwu became a starter, it still has an average and exploitable defense, especially with Jalen Johnson now confirmed to be done for the season.
Mitchell has a somewhat tough opponent in Hawks shooting guard Dyson Daniels, but he’s more of an elite ball hawk than elite perimeter stopper. While he leads the league in steals and deflections by a wide margin, opponents have shot 3.8 percentage points better with Daniels as the primary defender, and Atlanta has been 2.7 points per 100 possessions better overall with Daniels off the court. Hawks point guard Trae Young, the only Atlanta player with a reasonable chance of being the game’s leading scorer, hasn’t topped 21 points in any of his last four games, shooting just 23.8% from deep across that span, and while Garland has outscored Mitchell three times in his last four games, Mitchell has scored 30 or more six times in his last nine games, making him a far safer bet.
Donovan Mitchell O3.5 Three-Pointers Made (+105)
Part of it is a function of volume — the Hawks play at the league’s second-fastest pace — but Atlanta gives up the second-most made three-pointers and the fourth-best three-point percentage in the league. Mitchell, who has attempted double-digit three-pointers in three of his last four games, should be poised to exploit that, especially since the Hawks’ best three-point defender, Johnson, is done for the year (interestingly, Atlanta’s second-best three-point defender is Young, notorious for subpar defense).
Part of the Hawks’ struggles against perimeter shooters can be attributed to opponents’ shot diet; Atlanta allows a relatively high frequency of open threes, categorized as such when the nearest defender is between four and six feet away. Mitchell is about league-average on such shots, attempting 5.0 open threes per game and converting them at a 38.8% clip.
