Kelsey Mitchell Is Making Up For Lost Time In The Playoffs | Defector

"Kelsey Mitchell was drafted to the Indiana Fever in 2018. She left Ohio State as the Big Ten conference's all-time leading scorer and the NCAA leader in career made threes, records that stood until a certain future teammate showed up. In the WNBA, Mitchell's scoring numbers hovered in the same place year after year, to little attention, the points usually in vain. The Fever's longest-tenured player might be a veteran, but the wisdom doesn't come from lots of big-game experience."

"The WNBA sends eight of 13 teams to the playoffs; until this year, it sent eight of 12. It feels mathematically impossible that a player could make a playoff debut in her seventh season and only first win a playoff game in her eighth, but then, the Fever have been impossibly bad. "I've had five coaches in eight years. I've been on the worst-record teams here," Mitchell said Thursday, celebrating her second playoff victory and first series clincher, Indiana's 87-85 nailbiter upset of the Atlanta Dream."

"However low the odds of a series win seemed when this series began, they seemed even lower earlier in the year, when half the Fever rotation began to make their home on the injury report. Caitlin Clark went down first. Sophie Cunningham's knee gave out. The backup point guard and backup backup point guard suffered season-ending injuries in the same game. Aliyah Boston and Natasha Howard held down the frontcourt, but the guard group around Mitchell was, once again, looking just too thin."

Kelsey Mitchell, drafted by the Indiana Fever in 2018, left Ohio State as the Big Ten's all-time leading scorer and NCAA leader in made three-pointers. Her WNBA scoring stayed consistent but drew little team success as the Fever endured losing seasons and multiple coaching changes. The Fever struggled with injuries to key guards, including Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, thinning the backcourt. Mitchell's speed and second-half scoring kept the offense viable, and she earned recognition as an MVP finalist while pushing the Fever to upset a higher seed in the playoffs and reach the semifinals.

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