With injured Caitlin Clark, fever needs more Kelsey Mitchell to avoid falling into a deeper hole

With 5.8 seconds remaining on Friday evening, Indiana fever, which dragged up to 15 in the fourth quarter, was lowered by two to Connecticut Sun, but had the ball with a chance to link or win the match. They never even had shot on the rim.

Kelsey Mitchell rolled in the corner of an Aliyah Boston screen, but has poorly managed a pass from Lexie Hull. While the last seconds walked away, Mitchell rushed to settle control and launched a desperate attempt at the baseline that has never had the opportunity.

The sun maintained an 85-83 victory – their first of the season – while the fever lost its third consecutive match, and second without Caitlin Clark in alignment.

“Regarding the last game, it was not clean,” said fever coach Stephanie White. “We did not understand it properly. From the way he developed, it seemed that we were going well, but it was simply not clean.”

Mitchell's error has summarized another disappointing night for the double All-Star, which finished with 13 points and five assists out of 4 out of 15 on the field. Two nights before, Mitchell collected 14 points and four assists out of 4 of the 16 shot in the defeat of fever against the mystics of Washington.

In two games without Caitlin Clark, which is sidelined with a quad injury until at least June 7, Mitchell scored 27 points out of 8 on the field, including 2 out of 11 of the 3 -point range. The fever has lost these competitions by eight combined points.

Mitchell had the best season of his career in 2024 by playing alongside Clark, and together, they formed one of the most dynamic backcourts in the league. The fever was so eager to keep the city left -hander of the city that they used the basic designation to obtain exclusive negotiation rights, then signed it to a one -year Supermax contract which made it the best paid player in the league.

For six games, Mitchell does not hold its end of the agreement. It has an average of 16.3 points – its minus since 2019 – and three assists on 38.7% shooting.

There was a lot of concern in Indianapolis when Clark fell, but the general consensus was that they should be able to resist the storm because of their improved depth and a relatively low schedule. Instead, due to the large part of Mitchell's bad game, they seem terrible.

Mitchell does not have Clark's game skills – nobody does it, to be fair – but it was one of the best scope of the league last season thanks to its speed and its shooting ability. This was not the case during the first two weeks of this campaign.

Without Clark, Mitchell was forced to create more alone, against the defenses which aim to stop it, and the results were not pretty, in particular outside the restricted area.

It should be noted that Mitchell faces a fractured adult on his hand. The injury occurred as she played in China during the offseason, and Mitchell said During the training camp “nobody repaired it” while it was abroad.

“Probably healing alone now,” continued Mitchell. “Nothing that I can really do … Obviously, the coaches here took care of me to end it, I need to do. But there are only a lot of things you can do with a semi-fracted finger. It is part of life, part of basketball at that time. Normal athletes are going through.”

It is difficult to quantify exactly how much Mitchell's finger has exactly an effect on his rough shot lately, but that certainly does not help.

Even so, Mitchell has simply been good enough since Clark fell. The fever needs it to intensify before digging up an even greater hole.