Is Caitlin Clark the Fever’s golden ticket to their first playoff appearance since 2016?

Yahoo Sports basketball analyst Isis “Ice” Young and women basketball writer Cassandra Negley discuss how the Indiana Fever have finally gotten into the swing of things in the second half of the season, and debate whether or not they will make the playoffs.

Video Transcript

The Indiana Fever, a team that haven’t made a playoff spot since 2016 and that was their ultimate goal for this team this year.

You get back to back number one picks and you say you have to be in the playoffs, you have to get to the top eight cast.

What have you liked from this Fever team?

And can they make some noise in the playoffs?

I’ve liked how they’ve played after having more time together.

Like we focus so much in the early season on, quite frankly, like how bad they looked and how disoriented and how frustrating it was to watch an offense after you had watched Kaitlyn Clark, like, be a prolific offensive presence with Kate Martin and Gabby Marshall and they have found their footing together like pressers on the court on like the social media clips.

You can tell that they formed a better chemistry and honestly, like it just, it takes time to do that.

Kaitlyn Clark as a rookie point guard has been given the benefit of time in that she had a second training camp in her first year.

I mean, that’s huge.

And so Kelsey Mitchell is having potentially a career year.

She’s averaging about what she had before you have Lexi Hall stepping up to hit threes.

I just think they’ve taken advantage of the time they’ve come on a huge run and Lyndon had said last year, if they didn’t make the playoffs, it was going to be a disappointment.

I do think that they can take a game in the postseason.

I don’t know if they’re going to win a series, but certainly when you have a player like Caitlin Clark and a, a Boston Kelsey Mitchell is used to winning in college, but you have this recency of winning with a player like Caitlin and Aaliyah and that does carry into a playoff series.