Ajay Mitchell did not become a household name in his rookie year because his teammates would not let him. The Belgian guard, drafted in the second round and pushed into a rotation role mid-season after a Lu Dort injury, has spent most of the postseason filling whichever gap Oklahoma City needed filled — and on Wednesday in Los Angeles, that gap was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
With the MVP candidate in foul trouble for long stretches of Game 2, Mitchell played a meaningful hand in the Thunder's wire-to-wire 125-107 win that put them up 2-0 in the Western Conference Semifinals. Standing at the podium afterwards, the rookie's explanation of how the bench unit pulled it off sounded a lot like Mark Daigneault's — and that is precisely the point.
"I think everyone's always ready to go," Mitchell said. "The coaching staff does a good job at just getting all of us ready, and we have a lot of competitors. Everyone's a competitor on our team. So every time the lights are bright, everyone's ready to go."
The scenario was unforgiving. Gilgeous-Alexander played about ten or eleven minutes of stretched-out bench time across the night, much of it during a third quarter where the Lakers were specifically hunting his absence. Asked whether he felt obligated to fill the gaps the MVP leaves behind, Mitchell did not pretend the maths is simple.
"It's hard to fill those gaps, you know," he said. "But I just try to be aggressive — as aggressive as I can be — and just try to make the right play. As a team we did a great job in those minutes of just kind of pushing through and trying to get that lead. Credit to the team. We did a great job."
The rookie also leaned into Jerry McCain, the second-year guard who is becoming one of the breakout names of the Thunder bench unit.
"He's a crazy crazy shooter, crazy scorer," Mitchell said of McCain. "It's amazing to just have him on the team, and just being able to feed him. He's a great player and I think it really helps us. Especially having him on the court is just huge for us."
On what carried the bench unit defensively in the third quarter: "One, just being very aggressive on defence. Just our identity. And then playing with pace. That's something we really wanted to do, and we did a great job at that. Those two things were really important for us."
When Gilgeous-Alexander picked up his fourth foul, the Thunder did not need a halftime speech, a play diagram, or even a designated sub-rotation conversation, Mitchell said.
"Nothing specific," he said. "It was really just what we usually always do. We knew he was in foul trouble, but for us it was just focus on getting this win and focus on making winning plays. That's all we care about."
Mitchell, who has been the beneficiary of an injury-driven season-long opportunity, has been honest about how the playoff stretch has stretched him as a player.
"For sure — these opportunities for me have been great," he said. "Just seeing where I'm at as a player, seeing where I can still develop. So I'm taking it all in and it's amazing. But the mindset's been the same since we started the playoffs. It's just trying to go out there and make winning plays. If I have to be more aggressive, I got to do that. But at the end of the day, all that matters is just getting that win."
Where is he, exactly, two games into a Conference Semifinals?
"I think just finding balance and being aggressive, finding my teammates, and then just letting the game come to me, and being aggressive on both ends," Mitchell said. "I think I've done a great job. But it's great to see where I'm at and be able to tell myself, I know I can be much better. It just gives me a lot of confidence and just makes me want to work even more down the line."
On the question of physicality — the Lakers, like the Suns before them, have actively targeted his ability to absorb contact — Mitchell shrugged off the framing. "I've kind of always been physical," he said. "It's been one of my strengths, but I don't really when I'm out there think about it. I just go out there and play. Try to be as physical as I can, and just have fun."
The Thunder return to Oklahoma for Game 3 holding all the leverage. Their MVP-calibre guard has barely been on the floor in big stretches of two playoff wins. The bench, the rookie, and the next-man-up culture have done the rest.
