After a three-month absence, any butterflies Ajay Mitchell had pitted in his stomach vanished. His signature floater being his first bucket back from toe surgery likely felt like a thousand pounds lifted off his shoulders.
With nothing on the line, the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s 145-111 win over the Utah Jazz garnered views from the basketball sickos and fans excited to see Mitchell back in action after he suffered a toe sprain in early January.
Mitchell finished with nine points on 4-of-8 shooting and five assists. He shot 0-of-2 from 3 and went 1-of-2 on free throws. He also had a steal and only logged 18 minutes off the bench.
Everybody started to wonder if Mitchell would come back this season. His initial 10-to-12-week re-evaluation timeline had him razor-thin at the regular season finale. The 22-year-old just made the deadline before the clock hit midnight.
“First of all, happy for him. That’s a long rehab. He worked really hard to get himself ready for this. This is about as accelerated as he could’ve been and it’s a testament to the plan our staff had for him and his execution of that,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said. “Really happy for him and then you never know what a guy is going to look like but he’s in good shape. Pretty much in rhythm, which is a testament to the work he’s done.”
It was good to see Mitchell back as he gets two more games in before the season ends. That was the last loose thread left in the Thunder’s picture-perfect regular season. He likely won’t see much action in the playoffs but it’s nice to have him in their back pockets if the second unit runs into trouble.
“I know it’s super tough to go through a long rehab. It’s not fun at all. At the end of the day, we’re all competitors and I’m happy for him to go back out there on the floor,” Jaylin Williams said. “He looked great to me. There might be a little rust here and there but he looked great to me. It looked like he had his step and speed, everything out there.”
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Thunder happy to see Ajay Mitchell’s return in 145-111 win over Jazz
After a three-month absence, any butterflies Ajay Mitchell had pitted in his stomach vanished. His signature floater being his first bucket back from toe surgery likely felt like a thousand pounds lifted off his shoulders.
With nothing on the line, the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s 145-111 win over the Utah Jazz garnered views from the basketball sickos and fans excited to see Mitchell back in action after he suffered a toe sprain in early January.
Mitchell finished with nine points on 4-of-8 shooting and five assists. He shot 0-of-2 from 3 and went 1-of-2 on free throws. He also had a steal and only logged 18 minutes off the bench.
Everybody started to wonder if Mitchell would come back this season. His initial 10-to-12-week re-evaluation timeline had him razor-thin at the regular season finale. The 22-year-old just made the deadline before the clock hit midnight.
“First of all, happy for him. That’s a long rehab. He worked really hard to get himself ready for this. This is about as accelerated as he could’ve been and it’s a testament to the plan our staff had for him and his execution of that,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said. “Really happy for him and then you never know what a guy is going to look like but he’s in good shape. Pretty much in rhythm, which is a testament to the work he’s done.”
It was good to see Mitchell back as he gets two more games in before the season ends. That was the last loose thread left in the Thunder’s picture-perfect regular season. He likely won’t see much action in the playoffs but it’s nice to have him in their back pockets if the second unit runs into trouble.
“I know it’s super tough to go through a long rehab. It’s not fun at all. At the end of the day, we’re all competitors and I’m happy for him to go back out there on the floor,” Jaylin Williams said. “He looked great to me. There might be a little rust here and there but he looked great to me. It looked like he had his step and speed, everything out there.”
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Thunder happy to see Ajay Mitchell’s return in 145-111 win over Jazz
