On the second day of 2023, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points against the Chicago Bulls — a career-defining performance he has since attributed, with some bemusement, to drinks consumed the night before on New Year's Eve. Speaking on a podcast with NBA veterans Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, Mitchell framed the moment not as a prescription but as a peculiar collision of holiday circumstance and athletic transcendence. His candor invites a quiet question that sports science has long wrestled with: how much of peak performance is preparation, and how much remains stubbo
Mitchell credits pre-game drinks for historic 71-point performance
I've never drank before a game in my life. It was New Year's.
Mark
So Mitchell actually said the drinks helped? That's what he's claiming?
Mimi
He said he had a few drinks the night before, and then when asked about it, he suggested that's probably what allowed him to have the night he had. He was pretty direct about it.
Luke
But did he actually establish causation, or is he just connecting two things that happened in sequence? One night he drinks, the next night he scores 71. That doesn't mean the first caused the second.
Mimi
Right, and he seems aware of that himself. He emphasized it was a one-time thing, never before or since. He's not saying "drink before games and you'll score 71."
Mark
Why do you think he brought it up at all? Why tell that story?
Mimi
It's a good story. It's memorable. It's the kind of thing that gets people talking, and it happened to precede his best game ever. That's worth mentioning.
Luke
But we should be careful not to treat it as evidence that alcohol improves basketball performance. One player, one game, one anecdote. That's not data.
Mark
Fair. So what we actually know is: Mitchell drank on New Year's Eve, played the next day, and had a career night. Everything else is speculation.
Mimi
Exactly. The rest is Mitchell's own interpretation of what happened.
Le Pouls
- Mitchell's 71-point overtime explosion against the Bulls on January 2, 2023 remains one of the most statistically dominant individual performances in recent NBA history.
- The revelation that he consumed alcohol the night before — a New Year's Eve exception he says has never been repeated — cuts against the iron orthodoxy of professional athletic preparation.
- Speaking openly on the 'Cousins' podcast, Mitchell suggested the drinks may have been the unlikely catalyst for his historic night, a claim that is equal parts self-aware and genuinely puzzling.
- He was careful to disarm any misreading: this was not a strategy, not a recommendation, but a one-time anomaly he has never revisited before or since.
- The story now trails the 71-point game like a strange shadow — impossible to verify, impossible to dismiss, and far more interesting than a straightforward tale of preparation paying off.
On the second day of 2023, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points against the Chicago Bulls — a career-defining performance he has since attributed, with some bemusement, to drinks consumed the night before on New Year's Eve. Speaking on a podcast with NBA veterans Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, Mitchell framed the moment not as a prescription but as a peculiar collision of holiday circumstance and athletic transcendence. His candor invites a quiet question that sports science has long wrestled with: how much of peak performance is preparation, and how much remains stubbornly mysterious?
On January 2, 2023, Donovan Mitchell walked into Quicken Loans Arena and produced one of the most remarkable individual performances in recent NBA memory — 71 points in an overtime win over the Chicago Bulls. The game entered the record books immediately. What took longer to surface was the story behind it.
Months later, appearing on the 'Cousins' podcast alongside NBA veterans Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, Mitchell revealed that he had spent New Year's Eve drinking with teammates in Cleveland — something he says he has never done before a game at any other point in his professional career. The schedule had compressed the holiday into a narrow window between back-to-back games, and Mitchell made an exception.
'I've never drank before a game in my life,' he said. 'It was New Year's. So I did have a drink — a few drinks — the night before.' When pressed on the connection to his historic performance, he didn't deflect. 'I tell people that was probably what allowed me to have the night I had.'
Mitchell was careful not to overstate the claim. He wasn't proposing a new training philosophy or encouraging imitation. He was describing a singular, unrepeated moment — a holiday anomaly that happened to precede the best scoring night of his career. Whether the alcohol genuinely contributed or simply makes for a more compelling story than 'I prepared well and played well' remains an open question.
What is certain is that the experiment has not been repeated. The 71-point game now carries an unusual footnote: the night a professional athlete, with a mixture of honesty and wonder, credited a few New Year's drinks with unlocking something extraordinary.
On January 2, 2023, Donovan Mitchell walked into Quicken Loans Arena and scored 71 points. The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Chicago Bulls 145-134 in overtime, and Mitchell's performance entered the record books as a career high—one of those nights that gets replayed and analyzed for years. What made the story stranger was what Mitchell revealed months later, sitting down on the "Cousins" podcast with NBA veterans Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.
Mitchell had spent New Year's Eve in Cleveland with his team, preparing for a back-to-back set of games against the Bulls. The schedule was tight: play on the 31st, celebrate the new year that night, then take the court again on the 2nd. In that window between games, Mitchell did something he says he has never done before or since in his professional career. He drank.
"I've never drank before a game in my life," Mitchell said on the podcast. "It was New Year's. So I did have a drink—a few drinks—the night before the game." He was careful to frame it as an exception, a one-time collision of circumstance and holiday. The drinks came the evening before he would go on to score 71 points in an overtime thriller.
When asked about the connection, Mitchell didn't shy away from it. He suggested that the alcohol may have been the ingredient that unlocked his historic performance. "I tell people like that was probably what, you know, allowed me to have the night I had," he said. It's an unusual claim in professional sports, where conventional wisdom holds that alcohol impairs athletic performance, not enhances it. Most athletes treat pre-game drinking as a cardinal sin, something that dulls reflexes and clouds judgment.
Yet Mitchell's anecdote sits in an odd space. He wasn't advocating for a new training method. He wasn't suggesting other players follow suit. Instead, he was describing a singular moment—a New Year's celebration that happened to precede one of the best scoring nights of his career. The causation remains unclear, whether the drinks genuinely helped or whether the story simply makes for better podcast conversation than "I played well because I prepared well."
What's certain is that Mitchell has not repeated the experiment. He emphasized that this was an anomaly, a break from his normal routine that he has not revisited in the years since. The 71-point game stands as a statistical outlier in his career, and now it also stands as a curious footnote—the night a professional athlete credited alcohol with fueling his most dominant performance.
Citations marquantes
I've never drank before a game in my life. It was New Year's. So I did have a drink—a few drinks—the night before the game.— Donovan Mitchell on the Cousins podcast
I tell people like that was probably what, you know, allowed me to have the night I had.— Donovan Mitchell, attributing his 71-point performance to the pre-game drinks
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