Promoting the 23-year-old to the starting lineup, he licked his chops at the vacated scoring looks up for grabs.The Oklahoma City Thunder pulled away late for a 121-109 Game 3 win over the Phoenix Suns. They now hold an ironclad 3-0 series lead in their Round 1 matchup.Mitchell finished with 15 points on 5-of-20 shooting, six rebounds and two assists. He shot 1-of-5 from 3 and went 4-of-4 on free throws.This is what the NBA playoffs are about.

Leaving it all on the floor — to your last drop of sweat. Without Jalen Williams, the Thunder badly needed someone else to step up as OKC's second-best scorer. In comes Mitchell, who's made a habit of being able to scale up or down whatever they need out of him.In his biggest test yet, Mitchell showed he's not afraid of the moment.

That's not something you can universally say about every second-year player. Especially one who was mostly sidelined in OKC's championship run last year. He had 10 points in the first half and five big-time ones in the final frame.The efficiency is a little grotesque.

Mitchell developed some bad tunnel vision, but eh, screw it. It's the playoffs. You just need buckets. No matter how pretty or ugly they get.

There's no replacing Williams' production one-for-one — especially considering how stellar he looked through six quarters — but the 23-year-old helped the Thunder keep their non-Gilgeous-Alexander offense above water. That's all Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault asked for."He's obviously not shy, so that's a start. Winners fail and losers hide.

He wasn't hiding," Daigneault said about Mitchell. "That's one of the things I love about this team. We've got a bunch of guys who lean into the competition.

It's not always gonna be perfect. I don't know what he shot from the floor, but it wasn't overly efficient. He's not shying away from the moment.

He's aggressive and he executes. I think he obviously took a lot of shots, but he executes offense, he executes defense."The praise continued with Chet Holmgren. Despite Mitchell shooting a lowly 25% from the field, the Thunder gladly took someone else willing to step up for Williams' absence.

Wasn't totally perfect, but a great step in that direction as he navigates his first real postseason run."I think it's a crime that he fell where he did in the draft. There should be some jobs lost for that one. We're happy that happened and we have him," Holmgren said about Mitchell.

"Shoutout Ajay. He played amazing tonight. It's nothing unexpected. We know the type of player he is. We've seen it game in and game out."This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Why Thunder view Ajay Mitchell as a 'winner' after Game 3 win over Suns