Donovan Mitchell expressed his frustration and unhappiness with the Utah Jazz's decision to hold him out of Sunday's loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, though the All-Star has been cleared to return for Game 2 of the Western Conference first-round series.
Mitchell was surprisingly absent as the top-seeded Jazz were upstaged 112-109 by the Grizzlies in Utah, where the guard had expected to play.
Utah's Mitchell has been sidelined since spraining his right ankle on April 16 and he addressed the decision ahead of Tuesday's game, which the 24-year-old is listed as available.
"For me, for my team, I was definitely frustrated and upset that I wasn't able to play," said Mitchell on Monday.
"I'm a competitor. I felt I was ready to go. I felt ready to go, and unfortunately, that wasn't the case. That was not how it happened. I was ready to go when I spoke [to media after Sunday's shootaround], and they came to the decision that that's what it was.
"The biggest thing for us is moving forward. We lost Game 1, and we've got s*** to handle. Excuse my language, we've got s*** to handle moving forward."
Mitchell has been averaging career highs in points (26.4), assists (5.2) and three-point percentage (38.6) this season.
"The biggest thing is I felt like I should have played," said Mitchell. "To be honest with you, it's no secret. We all know that. At the end of the day, the experts said no. We can disagree on those things, but that was the frustration.
"It was unfair to my team. I felt like, man, I let them down in the sense that you're not there for them in a playoff game. That probably hurts me more than anything else. It eats me. I barely slept because you think about that stuff. So that was really where it hit me, where it hurt."