WASHINGTON, DC — The Indiana Fever, playing with substitute players for most of the game, lost their final regular-season game to the Washington Mystics 92-91 on Thursday night.
The game was ultimately unimportant for the Fever, who finished the season 20-20. They will be the No. 6 seed in the playoffs and will face Connecticut. The Sun secured third place with a win over Chicago on Thursday night.
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Here are three observations:
Kelsey Mitchell sits after scare in the first quarter
The result of the Fever-Washington game ultimately had no bearing on Indiana’s ranking. The Fever would secure 6th place in any case. Christie Sides therefore said before the game that the coaches would be cautious in assigning the starting players. And that came to fruition almost immediately.
Leading scorer Kelsey Mitchell fell under the basket midway through the first quarter after colliding with a Mystics player and was slow to get back up. Although she was able to walk up and down the court, she limped on her left leg. At one point, during an attack, she tried to shake out her left leg.
She checked out on the next dead ball and went back to the locker room with the athletic trainers. She quickly returned to the bench in the second quarter and briefly wore a knee brace on her left knee, but did not wear it for long.
Mitchell’s benching for the rest of the game seemed to be a precautionary measure – she jumped up with the rest of the bench after big baskets, jogged to catch up with her teammates during timeouts, and warmed up for the second half as usual.
According to Scott Agness, player development coach Jhared Simpson said on the show, “Oh, she’s fine. She’s a fighter. She’s sitting on the bench.”
The other four Fever starters each played about 20 minutes.
Defensive weakness in midfield
Indiana’s defense held Washington to four points in the first six minutes of Thursday night’s game. And the next 14 minutes? The Mystics scored 48 points. Yes, this game isn’t important for the Fever, and the substitutes ended up playing most of the game. But that defensive effort, especially with the looming loss to Connecticut, is probably not what the coaching staff wanted coming into the playoffs.
Washington, a team that entered this game battling for the eighth and final playoff spot, scored 30 points in the second quarter. Then another 30 points in the third. The Mystics are the ninth-best team in the league, averaging just 79 points per game. They surpassed that number before the end of the third quarter.
To the Fever’s credit, they cleaned up their defense in the fourth quarter, allowing seven points in the first five minutes, while Indiana’s reserves erased a 15-point deficit and got within one point with a minute to go.
Sides has emphasized defense all season after Indiana finished the 2023 season second to last in defensive rating. From a statistical standpoint, Indiana hasn’t necessarily improved – the Fever are still 11th in the league this season with a defensive rating of 106.3.
But with an improved offense, the Fever were able to exploit their defensive weaknesses, improving from 13-27 in 2023 to a 20-20 playoff team with similar defensive performances year to year.
Grace Berger and Victaria Saxton play many minutes
To give her regular players a break, Christie Sides cleared her bench early Thursday evening.
Kristy Wallace, who has played sparingly since being dropped from the starting lineup in late June, entered the game in the second quarter and played more than half the game, shooting 6 of 8 for 17 points in her extended time on the court and making some key defensive plays.
Grace Berger, a 2023 All-Rookie selection, has barely played this season, but she entered the game in the third quarter and played the entire fourth. She finished the game with two points, one assist and two rebounds and had a +15 rating.
Victaria Saxton has also played in just eight games this season, all of them in overtime. She entered the game in the 5th minute of the fourth quarter on Thursday and sank a layup and a 3-pointer in quick succession.
How many points did Caitlin Clark score?
The surefire Rookie of the Year finished the regular season with 8 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds. She was substituted midway through the third quarter and did not return.
