Mitchell’s 34-point performance fueled the Fever to Game 1 victory over the Aces.
Despite being a top-10 scorer in the league since 2020, the Fever missed the playoffs the first six years of her career.
Mitchell got first of three All-Star nods in 2023 and will likely make her first All-WNBA team this season after averaging a career-high 20.2 points, the third-highest in the league.
In a tumultuous season defined by injuries and resilience, Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell has remained a constant.
Mitchell has, in fact, been a constant for the Fever organization ever since she was drafted No. 2 overall out of Ohio State in 2018. She’s endured ups and downs during her eight-year career in Indiana, including six losing seasons and five different head coaches, enough turmoil to send any top pick packing.
But Mitchell never bailed and the 29-year-old is now leading the Fever’s improbable postseason charge.
‘There have been multiple times this season where (Mitchell) has put us on her back and she’s carried us,’ Indiana head coach Stephanie White said on Sunday after the Fever upset the Las Vegas Aces 89-73 to steal Game 1 of the WNBA playoff semifinals behind Mitchell’s 34-point performance.
WINNERS/LOSERS: Kelsey Mitchell fuels Fever, MVP A’ja Wilson struggles
Despite finishing fifth in voting, Mitchell looked like the MVP while facing off against newly-minted four-time winner A’ja Wilson. In Game 1, Mitchell became the first Fever player to score 30 or more points in the playoffs since Shavonte Zellous in the 2012 WNBA Finals.
It was not only the first semifinal appearance and win in Mitchell’s career, it was also the first time she’d won in Las Vegas.
‘For eight years, I’ve only beat (the Aces) one time (on their home court) and that’s today,’ Mitchell said. ‘That’s the growth. That’s the experience, that’s the being at the bottom of the barrel, that’s the not being on anybody’s radar and being a loser. So I’ve seen that. I know what that looks like.”
Kelsey Mitchell is the ‘face of a franchise’
Mitchell’s ascent from a forgotten superstar to a legitimate MVP contender has been years in the making. Despite being a top-10 scorer in the league since 2020, the Fever missed the playoffs the first six years of her career.
But that changed with a series of draft picks, starting with Lexie Hull in 2022, Aliyah Boston in 2023 and Caitlin Clark in 2024. The arrival of Boston and Clark shined the spotlight on the once desolate organization, allowing Mitchell to showcase her skills. Recognition soon followed. Mitchell got first of three All-Star nods in 2023 and will likely make her first All-WNBA team this season after averaging a career-high 20.2 points, the third-highest in the league.
‘Big shoutout to the organization taking time to rebuild. Our draft picks ended up coming up big,’ Mitchell said on ESPN’s ‘NBA Today’ on Monday, giving a nod to Clark, Boston and Hull. ‘Then you bring in Caitlin (Clark), who changed the world and changed the dynamic of basketball. As a friend and as a player, you better appreciate her, because certain doors have opened because she’s come to the Fever. You have to respect that.”
Mitchell added: ‘When you cumulate that together with my experience in having to go through a couple things before they got there, I think it was just a match made in heaven.’
Following the team’s 2024 playoff bid — their first since 2015 — the Fever entered the 2025 season as a championship contender and put the league on notice after hoisting the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup by beating the Minnesota Lynx in July.
Indiana then faced a barrage of injuries, losing five players including Clark. As a revolving door of players entered and exited nine starting lineups, Mitchell remained a constant — starting all 44 games. It was third consecutive season she hasn’t missed a game.
‘Kelsey is definitely the head of the snake for us,’ White said. ‘You’ve seen her ability to be a face of a franchise that she’s been through the ebbs and flows of. I’m happy for her and proud for our franchise.’
Fever forward Brianna Turner added, ‘Everyone deserves a Kelsey Mitchell on their team, but they don’t get it because we get her.’
Injuries, adversity and resilience
After Clark (right groin injury) was ruled out for the remainder of the season in September — alongside Chloe Bibby (left knee), Sydney Colson (left knee), Sophie Cunningham (right knee) and Aari McDonald (right foot) — many wondered if the Fever would even advance to the postseason.
Mitchell and company have answered that question. Not only did the Fever oust the No. 3 seed Atlanta Dream on the road in the first round of the WNBA playoffs, Indiana has the 2022 and 2023 WNBA champion Aces on their heels with a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five semifinal series.
‘This group is just really special,’ White said. ‘Their selflessness to pull for the ‘we’ over the ‘me,’ the ability to let each teammate be who they are and shine at their best and to lift them up in those moments.
‘You couple that with the resilience, the toughness, the grit, the fight, the scrappiness, and you always give yourself a chance.’
Mitchell was borderline unstoppable in Sunday’s Game 1 win. She used her pace to attack the paint — White call her ‘probably the fastest player in the league with the ball in her hands,’ — while knocking down tough shots and seamlessly facilitating buckets for teammates. She shot an efficient 12-of-23 from the field and 4-of-6 from 3.
‘Clearly we had no answer for (Kelsey) Mitchell. Couldn’t even attempt to slow her down a little bit,’ Aces head coach Becky Hammon said afterward. ‘She made every freaking shot. Long twos, short twos, threes, get to the free throw line … She had 17 at half and continued that into the second half.’
Kelsey Mitchell: Stephanie White ‘believed in me’
Despite national recognition and praise from her peers, Mitchell remains as humble as ever. Maybe a little too humble for her teammates. ‘I’m like, Kelsey, talk your (expletive). You’re one of the best guards in this league,’ Turner joked.
Mitchell attributed her breakout season to White, who’s in her second stint as the Fever head coach (2015-16). Mitchell said White has given her ‘an opportunity to kind of be who I am,’ which Mitchell said she’ll ‘never take for granted.’
‘I’ve had five coaches in eight years. I’ve been on the worst record teams here … so I know where my career started at. I know what I’ve had to go through kind of being this position,’ Mitchell said. ‘I’ve never had a coach that poured into me respectfully like (White) has … And so for the first time in my career, I really feel like I have someone that valued what I bring to the table as a player and a person.’
The Fever will need Mitchell to be every bit of the game-changer she is during their Game 2 matchup against the Aces on Tuesday in Las Vegas (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
“Kelsey Mitchell has been through the worst parts of this franchise, and she deserves to go through the best,” White said Saturday. “She’s rising to the challenge.”
Mitchell wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Everything that I’ve been through brought me here,’ Mitchell said. ‘Everything I had to go through was big for me because I think I can enjoy this moment a little bit more and be prepared for this moment a little more.’
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