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Mitchell speaks about relationship with Jazz team-mate Gobert

After friction earlier this year, Utah Jazz pair Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are back on good terms.

By Jon Palmieri
Gobert Mitchell

Los Angeles, July 3: Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell discussed his relationship with team-mate and fellow All-Star Rudy Gobert in a Zoom conference call on Thursday and said the two are fine now after there was friction in the wake of the coronavirus situation.

The NBA shut down its season after Gobert became the first player to test positive for COVID-19 on March 11.

That also led to strife in the Jazz locker room because Gobert just days earlier mocked the league's media distancing protocols by breathing and touching microphones at the podium during his media session.

Gobert had also reportedly been careless during interactions with team-mates and Donovan tested positive the following day. The team-mates did not speak to each other for a month after the tests.

"Right now, we're good," Mitchell said. "We're going out there ready to hoop. I think the biggest thing that kind of sucked was that it took away from guys on the team, took away from what the guys on the team were trying to do.

"I think that'll be really a part of the focus, is just us gelling as a team because obviously, Rudy and I had COVID and whatever happened, happened, but now we're ready to hoop and focused on the team as a whole because we're not really trying to keep attention away from what everybody's got going on."

The Jazz are fourth in the Western Conference as the NBA season gets set to resume in Orlando, Florida on July 30.

Mitchell led Utah with 24.2 points per game when the season was paused, while Gobert averaged 15.1 points and ranked fourth in the league with 13.7 rebounds and sixth with 2.0 blocks.

Story first published: Friday, July 3, 2020, 9:02 [IST]
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