Head coach Stephanie White had challenged her team before tipoff to show more urgency and fight than they had in Game 1. “There’s a certain desperation you have to bring to every possession,” White said before the game. “We didn’t have that consistently for 40 minutes in Game 1… I expect us to have it here tonight.” Her players took that to heart as they produced a fiery  77-60 victory over Atlanta this Tuesday night, sealing their first home playoff victory since 2015.

Kelsey Mitchell wasted no time putting her stamp on the night. She opened the floor early with four first-half threes and ended up with 19 points and four assists, darting past defenders and setting up teammates when the defense collapsed. Every time Atlanta started to sniff a comeback, it was either Mitchell’s shotmaking or Aliyah Boston’s steady footwork in the paint that steadied Indiana. Boston chipped in 15 points, five rebounds, and three assists of her own, while Natasha Howard added 12 points and five boards, giving the Fever a third steady option. With Gainbridge Fieldhouse awash in red “Now You Know” shirts and the crowd standing on every run, Indiana kept hammering away, building and rebuilding its lead.

The turning point came right after halftime. Mitchell drilled a 3-pointer on the opening possession of the third quarter to make it 38-29. Naz Hillmon briefly silenced the building with consecutive layups that sliced the lead to 40-37, but Indiana answered with its biggest punch of the night:  a 7-0 burst capped by Boston coolly knocking down a 27-foot three to stretch the margin to 47-37. Even after Rhyne Howard interrupted the surge with two free throws, the Fever closed the period with another seven straight. By the time Lexie Hull banked in a buzzer-beating three at the horn, the place was shaking, the Fever bench was waving towels, and Atlanta had been held 25 points below its usual scoring average. But the Dream weren’t finished. 

Hillmon and Howard each snuck in late buckets that trimmed the lead to five in the fourth, but Indiana immediately rebuilt it to 15 and never let go. Even Allisha Gray, fighting foul trouble and a brief courtside flare-up, couldn’t swing the momentum back Atlanta’s way. The Fever eventually ballooned the gap to 24 points, enough to give Mitchell and Boston a breather down the stretch while the home crowd roared them off the floor. It was the kind of closing statement Indiana had been missing for nearly a decade— a night where desperation met equal parts execution to end a playoff drought that had tormented them since October 11th, 2015, when the Fever beat the Minnesota Lynx by a 75-69 score.

The Indiana Fever’s season has been riddled with setbacks. Caitlin Clark, their brightest star, managed just 13 appearances. DeWanna Bonner departed, and five players—including Clark—were sidelined with season-ending injuries. What began as a championship-caliber roster was reduced to a team forced to claw its way into the playoffs as the No. 6 seed. But the “most resilient team” fared through. And if you ask them, true to their identity, having a “never give up” attitude had a lot to do with it. 

Kelsey Mitchell & Co. Shared Mindset To Defeat Atlanta Dream

During somewhere between the 3rd and 4th quarters of the Indiana Fever’s 77-60 win, Kelsey Mitchell stopped by for an interview with ESPN’s Angel Gray. During the Q&A session, she admitted that “The playoffs are all about not giving up. If I’ve learned anything about our group and our resiliency, we won’t give up. Right now it’s just about that — not giving up and going the extra mile”.

Lexie Hull also adopted a ‘never give up’ attitude. Before Game 2, she revealed having observed her squad’s performance in Game 1, and said, “We knew coming in, it’s playoffs, it’s going to be physical, and we’re going to have to learn how to play with that, especially this team is inherently a physical team. So for us, knowing that’s the case and being able to respond, I think there’s things that we’re able to watch in film on how to handle that better, not letting the refs determine how that physicality is impacting us.”

Now, the Indiana Fever is just one win away from advancing to the semifinals for the first time since 2015. Whether the Indiana Fever’s good fortune and resilience continue to reward them is something that remains to be seen.