Playoff Preview: Resilient Fever return to postseason, face Dream in featured matchup
The Fever enter the postseason as the 6 seed once again, opening a best-of-three series against 3-seeded Atlanta on Sunday. And after all they’ve endured, they believe it gives them an edge.
The WNBA playoff teams were set, but the seeding came down to the final game on the final night.
Some members of the Indiana Fever chose to stay up to midnight to learn their first-round opponent, while others waited until morning.
“I rely on our Fever Girls group chat for a lot of things,” said veteran guard Kelsey Mitchell. “Schedule is one of them, and when we play was another one of them.”
After a 24-20 record, the Fever reached the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time in a decade — and once again, they’re the 6 seed. They’ll face 3-seeded Atlanta Dream in Round 1, beginning Sunday.
“It's a good opportunity for us,” Mitchell said. “So it will be challenging, but I think all eight teams are here for a reason.”
All four playoff series begin Sunday and still, it did not come as a surprise that the Fever — even without Caitlin Clark and four other players, all lost to season-ending injuries — are playing in the featured game.
Three of Sunday’s four playoff games will air on ESPN, counter-programmed against the NFL, while the Fever–Dream opener will air nationally on ABC.
Series Schedule
Game 1: Sunday in Atlanta, 3 ET on ABC
Game 2: Tuesday in Indy, 7:30 ET on ESPN
Game 3*: Thursday in Atlanta, time TBD on ESPN
(See the full WNBA schedule at the bottom of the page)
These two teams are not as familiar with each other as you might think — because they haven’t played since July 11.
That was before All-Star break.
They met in the preseason, in two of the first three games, three of the first nine … and all four season meetings were completed by Game 20. Not even halfway into the 44-game schedule.
The Dream have evolved quite a bit, but no team has had to adapt more than the Fever because of their injury situation. Injuries forced their hand.
“I think the big part about us is that because we are different, it give us more of an edge, in my opinion,” said Mitchell, who became the franchise’s first player to average 20 points per game.
“We've had like six different teams, and so they have a lot to obviously scout us. But for us, it’s about keeping the main thing, the main thing. And I think our energy, our effort, and focusing on getting the reps for who we going to play is big for us right now.”
The proverbial chip on their shoulder or playing with an edge if often overplayed. Too often. But not this season, given all they have gone through. Battle scars have made this group tougher and closer.
“I think this year we're just a tighter group,” said guard Lexie Hull. “Because we've gone through so much this season, we're really excited about the opportunity to surprise some people.”
Indiana finished its unprecedented season with three wins in a row and five of their last seven.
“I feel like we did a really good job when it came to our defense, offense,” said Natasha Howard, who has reached the playoffs in 11 of 12 seasons as pro. “Just overall, effort from the starters all the way to the bench, they came in and executed. And we give credit to our coaches too, like how they've worked so hard to get us prepared for each game.
“We're hungry. Even though we had a whole bunch of injuries on this team, we're hungry, we stay together, we fight together no matter what. And we also brought in new pieces that can actually help us out as well. And at the end, we just gonna scare the WNBA.”
Atlanta finished 30-14 under first-year head coach Karl Smesko, doubling its win total from last season. However, this stage will be new to him.
They are led by Allisha Gray, Rhyne Howard, Bri Jones, and Brittney Griner.
“Their size at most all positions has been a challenge for us,” said Fever coach Stephanie White, who at this time last year was in Connecticut and preparing for a series against Indiana.
“So we're gonna have to combat that with our discipline, number one, and with our reads on the offensive end of the floor. Secondly, just the way they space the floor. I mean, they do a really good job of still doing what his teams have always done in shooting the three, but also doing it in a different way and utilizing their post touches and their dominant interior players to score or to find open shooters.
Meanwhile, this Fever team has been battled and bruised — in more ways than one. Primarily, they’ve been without Clark for all but 13 games. Then over the last month, they lost five players to season-ending injuries (including Clark being ruled out for the rest of the year.)
Hull — who played in all 44 games, starting in 30 — had a bruise for several weeks to show for it. Specifically, a knot on the right side of her forehead became two black eyes. She toughed it out without makeup.
Finally, they are gone.
“It took a while, took longer than I expected,” she admitted.
On Thursday, they didn’t know who they were playing. So practice was focused on themselves and adding to the playbook. I took note how the scoreboard at Gainbridge Fieldhouse read ***** where the opponent would go.
Could be Las Vegas Aces, could be Dream.
Now they know: it’s the Dream.
Full WNBA Playoff Schedule
The Fever, whose schedule has been busy and quite chaotic for much of the season, got a moment this week to pause. After finishing the regular season on Tuesday, now they won’t play again until Sunday afternoon.
“We've gotta be able to fine tune some things, number one,” White said. “And number two, it gives us an opportunity that we haven't had to maybe add some things and tweak a couple things. So today's about us on both ends of the floor.
“Just getting opportunity to work execution, timing, situational things that we haven't really had in true practice time. And then the second thing is we've had to scale back so much that now we can add a couple of more things. We can't go crazy, but add a couple of things and maybe a couple of little minor tweaks.”
White stressed the importance of adding more options, being less predictable after they were forced to scale back over the last two months. They brought in a handful of players on hardship contracts, two of whom later got hurt.
Then, they flew in a few players from overseas to field a team. Yeah, it’s been that kind of year.
What changes now, entering postseason play?
“The playoffs require a different level of urgency in everything that we do,” said White. “Everything matters — how you approach things, and we talked about it today. I mean, it's gonna take another level of discipline. It's gonna take another level of focus. Starting with our prep, rotations get shorter, your time sometimes gets shorter. Everything is heightened, and we have to be willing to rise to that occasion and meet the moment.”
One thing the team must be prepared for, even more than the size and length of the Dream, is their physicality. Fans will remember how tough, how physical, how their in-your-face defense took away the Fever’s airspace — as well as their comfort.
“I think the biggest confidence,” Mitchell said of how they counteract it. “Confidence is big because every time they do try to crowd your space, you've got to have confidence. You've got to have the preparation and be prepared.
“I think that we've put ourselves in a situation to be just as aggressive and take up airspace as they will. I think more importantly, it's about using our aggression to make plays for each other. And that's big for us because we rely on each other so well. You guys get to see it at our peak. Chemistry is big for us when we all get to play together. So for every time they are going to be aggressive and be tight in our space, we're going to have to make the right play for each other.”
And finally, over the last few weeks, things have stabilized. They had hoped to be more healthy, including having Clark back, but she’s out. The group they finished the season with is the group that will go to battle.
As Mitchell often reminds her teammates: we all we got, we all we need.
Added Odyssey Sims, who went from without a WNBA job to Fever starting point guard. And excelling at it.
“When you look at this team, even before I got here, everything that they've been through all season, it's preparing us for the new season, new season starts on Sunday,” she said.
“Everybody's 0-0, anything can happen. We're not looking at the regular season, what we did, what our record was. We have a new record, we have new, different mindset.”
Here’s my practice report from Thursday, including interviews with White, Natasha Howard, and Lexie Hull: