On Friday night, the Indiana Fever visit the Portland Fire (10 p.m. ET, ION).
Fire, however, better describes the Fever’s Kelsey Mitchell. She is a bucket-getting inferno, with the opponent, All-Star break, homework obligations or anything else unable to slow her current scoring tear.
Mitchell has dropped at least 20 points in 12-straight games, the third longest streak of consecutive games of at least 20 points in WNBA history.
In nine of those games, she scored more than 25 points, reaching 30 or better in three of them. And while it doesn’t count, she also poured in a game-high 28 points in the WNBA All-Star Game last Saturday, an efficient outburst that, had Team Coop won, likely would have resulted in her claiming MVP honors.
Mitchell already has collected a notable milestone this season: She surpassed Tamika Catchings to become the all-time leading scorer in Fever franchise history. Her current scoring streak is rapidly padding her point total, suggesting her status as the greatest scorer in the annals of Indiana basketball will be secure for a long time.
Considering Portland has the third-worst defensive rating in the league, the conditions seem ripe for Mitchell to easily rip off 20 or more points.
Yet, rather surprisingly, Kelsey has had two of her quieter scoring nights against the Fire.
The first time around, however, had little to do with anything Portland did to stymie one of the league’s best scorers.
In a near 20-point win for the Fever in Indy, Mitchell crossed the 20-point plateau with 21 points—and didn’t need to score any more as the Fever, competing without Caitlin Clark, cruised, never trailing and leading by double digits throughout the second half. Mitchell took care of business in hyper-efficient fashion, going 6-for-11 from the field, 2-for-3 from 3 and 7-for-9 from the line.
The second matchup followed a near-opposite script, with the Fire wresting early control and never relenting. Indiana, arguably, should have pressed the Mitchell button earlier and often. With Clark struggling her way to a season-low six points, Mitchell mustered 17 points, going 4-for-9 from the field, 1-for-2 from 3 and again feasting at the line with an 8-for-9 effort.
Even if Mitchell has yet to scorch Portland, keeping her off the line has to be a priority, as her nine-free-throw nights against the Fire are tied for her fourth-highest attempts in a game this season. Conversely, despite Portland allowing over 26 3-point attempts per game, the third-most in the league, they have effectively limited Mitchell from behind the arc, as the two and three 3-pointers she attempted against the Fire are her lowest outputs of the season.
Overall, trading Mitchell 3s for Mitchell free throws has been an effective enough approach for the Fire. Yet, that the cost of ensuring Mitchell can’t ignite behind the arc is allowing her to go to the line nine times is illustrative of why she is such a dangerous scorer.
This season, over 75 percent of her buckets come from the rim or behind the arc, with her 8.9 points in the paint ranking in the top five among guards and her 2.6 made triples per game representing the second-most of her career. Then, she’s collecting 18.7 percent of her points at the foul line, which is tied for her career high.
All that adds up to an analytically efficient shot profile that has produced career-best effective field goal (58.3) and true shooting (63.0) percentages.
Last year, Mitchell’s scoring prowess earned her an All-WNBA First Team honor and a fifth-place MVP finish. This year, she’s been even better, scoring more, scoring more efficiently and, at least it appears, scoring more effortlessly. Currently, she sits sixth in ESPN Analytics’ MVP ladder.
What do you expect to see from KMitch? Another 20-point night? Another 30-point performance? A total that exceeds her season high of 33 points?
Elsewhere around the WNBA, who else do you expect to deliver with a dynamite night?
When the Atlanta Dream host the Seattle Storm (7:30 p.m. ET, ION), Dream fans, surely, would like to see Rhyne Howard come alive and look like the dangerous scorer she is at her best. The Washington Mystics, angling for a fourth-straight win against the Dallas Wings (7:30 p.m. ET, ION), could use a Sonia Citron scoring show, although Azzi Fudd, in her homecoming game in the DMV, might instead steal the scoring spotlight.
Share all your super-scorer predictions in the comments.
