Clark, Mitchell ignite Fever to 20th win in home finale

Sep. 15—INDIANAPOLIS — Symbolic or not, an Indiana Fever victory over Dallas on Sunday was the team’s 20th of the season, a number that means something to the participants.

Particularly to seventh-year Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell.

“It’s a big deal. I’ve never accomplished something personally like that,” she said. “Hats off to our group. Hats off to the season so far. I say ‘so far’ because I look forward to a healthy run for us in the playoffs. I’m excited about the 20 wins. I’m grateful.”

Mitchell scored 30 on Sunday while her backcourt partner Caitlin Clark scored a career-high 35 points and became the WNBA’s all-time leading rookie scorer and the Fever closed out the home portion of the regular season with a 110-109 victory over the Wings before another capacity home crowd on “Fan Appreciation Day.”

The sellout crowd of 17,274 extended the Fever’s record for total attendance — home and road — to over 622,000 for the season, far exceeding the previous record set by the Washington Mystics in 1999.

With the win and one game yet to play, Indiana (20-19) reaches the 20-win mark for the ninth time in team history and for the first time since 2015 while also clinching the six-seed in the upcoming WNBA playoffs. They will play at the third-seeded team when the postseason begins in one week.

Dallas dropped to 9-29 with the loss.

While Indiana head coach Christie Sides admitted the close game may necessitate the use of blood-pressure pills, she remarked the milestone means something to her, too.

It means her team is ahead of schedule.

“When I took the job and we made a plan, it was more of a four-year plan,” Sides said. “To be in Year 2, we never would have thought we would have gotten these 20 wins. I’m just really proud of these players for what they’ve done, the work they’ve put in and the resiliency they’ve shown.”

Mitchell and Clark well enter Thursday’s regular-season finale at Washington as the top two individual single-season scorers in franchise history, Mitchell at 763 points while Clark is just two points back at 761.

The two have learned to play off one another, and Mitchell said having another guard who enjoys the same up-tempo style of play has been a welcome addition.

“It’s really based off the read. I think we both do a great job of piggy-backing our games off one another,” Mitchell said.

“It’s fun. Kelsey makes my life easier out there, and it’s hard to pick and choose when both of us are on. It really puts the defense in a tough position,” Clark said. “We just read and understand each other a lot better than where we were at the beginning of the season.”

While the pair — who Sides referred to as her “dynamic duo” — were doing what they do, a three-headed monster from Dallas was giving the Fever fits.

While 6-foot-4 Satou Sabally and 6-2 Natasha Howard were enjoying big games in the paint, former Notre Dame great Arike Ogunbowale was lighting things up from the perimeter and reaching her own milestone.

Sabally scored 27, and Howard had a double-double with 26 points and 10 rebounds, but Ogunbowale was 5-for-10 from 3-point range and 10-of-17 overall. Her 3-point basket gave Dallas its first double-digit lead at 21-10 in the first quarter while Jacy Sheldon scored later in the period to give the Wings their biggest lead at 30-18.

In just her sixth season, Ogunbowale became the youngest player in WNBA history to surpass 4,000 career points Sunday.

As happy as Sides was with her team scoring 110 points, she knows 109 is too many to give up, especially against the competition Indiana is likely to meet in the postseason.

“I will always take 110 points,” she said. “My first note when I sat down was that we cannot beat good teams giving up that many points. Whoever we’re going to play, you can’t give up that many points.”

Five points off the bench from Temi Fagbenle toward the end of the first quarter helped the Fever close the gap to eight, then Clark exploded during the second quarter.

After being held scoreless in the opening period, she scored six straight points on a 3-pointer and three foul shots. On her way to 14 points in the quarter, she connected again from long range to trim the deficit to 40-37 and exhorted the crowd as Dallas called time out.

A Mitchell 3-pointer started a 14-4 Fever run, capped by a NaLyssa Smith rebound basket for a 51-46 lead.

But Dallas battled back with Sabally hitting a pair of free throws to put the Wings back on top 59-57 at the break.

During the third quarter, the Wings built a five-point lead on a Sevgi Uzun 3-point basket while the Fever had a three-point lead when Mitchell canned one of her six 3-point baskets. But the teams were in the same position at the start of the fourth quarter as they had been at halftime, with the Wings leading by two points.

After Ogunbowale tied the game at 86-86 at the free-throw line, the Fever seemed to grab control with an 11-2 run, the last seven points coming from Clark, for a 97-88 lead.

Undaunted, Dallas played on. Ogunbowale scored twice on the interior before baskets from Sheldon and Howard trimmed the lead back to one at 97-96.

But Mitchell drilled another 3-point basket at the 2:05 mark to end the run before Damiris Dantas came off the Fever bench and delivered consecutive 3-point baskets — her only two shot attempts of the game — to push the lead back to 106-98 with just over a minute to play.

“I feel like our team has built great chemistry at understanding where each other is going to be,” Clark said. “I shoot extra with Dontas after every shoot-around and. D.D. doesn’t miss. I feel so confident that every single time she shoots it, it’s going in.”

Although Ogunbowale and Sabally hit 3-pointers in the closing seconds for Dallas, two free throws each from Clark and Boston were enough to help the Fever hold off the Wings.

Boston finished with 15 points and six rebounds for the Fever, whose main goal now is to make sure they get a road playoff win to make sure Sunday’s game will not be their last in Gainbridge Fieldhouse this season.

“We’re not just happy to be there. We really believe that we belong and we can compete,” Clark said.

Contact Rob Hunt at rob.hunt@heraldbulletin.com or 765-640-4886.