The WNBA regular season is almost over, and the Indiana Fever are about to take the next step and head to the playoffs. This will be their first trip to the postseason since 2017, and they have been elevated by rookie Caitlin Clark, who has transformed the league and women’s sports in general.
Fellow All-Star guard Kelsey Mitchell has also played a large role in the Fever’s resurgence by averaging 19.6 points a game and shooting 46.7% from the field and 40.2% from 3-point range. The two have helped give Indiana one of the league’s better offenses, and the team won’t be an easy out in the playoffs.
Mitchell is about to play in the WNBA playoffs for the first time, and for advice on how to handle this new challenge, she reached out to a curious source of advice: Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell.
Via Silver Screen and Roll:
“I recently talked to my close friend D’Angelo Russell. We go way back. Me and him go back to the point where we trained together at Ohio State [University]. We kind of know each other so, from that perspective, it was good to get a conversation in regards to how [the playoffs] looked. … I like to get as much information as I can so it’s been exciting to hear about it.”
Fans will likely find Mitchell’s decision to go to Russell for this type of advice hilarious. While Russell is always a threat to go into volcano mode during the regular season, he is usually devoid of lava come playoff time.
Since coming to the Lakers in February 2023, he has shot just 41.4% from the field and 31.3% from downtown in 21 playoff games. In fact, he put up a bagel in Game 3 of the first round of last season’s first round versus the Denver Nuggets.
Compare that to his marks of 45.6% overall and 41.5% from downtown this past regular season, as well as his marks of 48.4% from the field and 41.4% from beyond the arc in 17 regular season contests with L.A. the previous year.
If Mitchell wants to know how to be wildly inconsistent with her shooting come playoff time, she has asked the right man for advice.
