Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell waved off a stretcher in Game 5 loss so she could leave on her own terms

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell grabbed the railing as she walked up and down the stairs to the dais Thursday.

The three-time All-Star didn't need crutches or a walking boot, didn't even walk with a noticeable limp. But she wasn't going to miss a last chance to speak about this team and its incredible postseason run — certainly not after waving away a stretcher. No, she was going to do this news conference the same way she departed Tuesday night's scary scene in Las Vegas — on her own terms.

In a social media post Wednesday, Mitchell explained what exactly happened — she suffered such severe cramping in her lower body that her legs and feet went numb for about seven seconds. On Thursday, she recounted the experience again, this time explaining why she was helped off the court.

“I was like, ‘Walking out of here on a stretcher was just not going to happen, not doing that,’” she said. “I was like, ‘If you guys just get me off the floor so you can finish the game, I’ll be fine.' But I don't know if you guys saw my feet, but they were like dangling because I had no move, no blood flow and so getting me off the court was just an act of God, really, because I couldn't lift my legs to move. So the stretcher thing was just, ‘No.’ I wasn't using the stretcher because I didn't deem it fitting. I think I was just making an impact on myself to say, ‘No, you’re going to get up and you're going to figure it out, without the stretcher.'”

Mitchell was Indiana's top scorer during the regular season and again in the postseason as she became one of the catalysts in the postseason run nobody saw coming with Caitlin Clark and three other Fever players out with season-ending injuries.

Indiana still managed to win its first playoff series in a decade and pushed the second-seeded Aces to a fifth and final game before falling 107-98 in overtime — without Mitchell or All-Star center Aliyah Boston, who fouled out.

Mitchell said the condition developed because she played “until my wheels fell off” and that there's no additional risk of a recurrence. But she does intend to spend some time this offseason recovering.

“I don't think I could play in a real game for another ... I mean, realistically, just take some time to rest," she said. "But I probably should take some time to kind of reset because I lost a lot of fluid. I just kind of felt scared because my legs were so numb and so paralyzed, so to speak, that I couldn't feel my feet.”

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