By Madie Chandler | FeverBasketball.com

The Indiana Fever came into Thursday’s matchup with the Las Vegas Aces at a sprint. The second half of the WNBA season isn’t a time to work out kinks or have patience finding a groove. It’s an all-out sprint to the finish line, a race at breakneck pace to finish in the best possible position come playoff time.

“It’s a gut check game every game,” Kelsey Mitchell said after the Fever fell to the Liberty on Tuesday. “I think everybody’s trying to make the playoffs or everybody’s trying to be a contender for something. And I think it all comes down to who’s going to be tougher. Who’s going to be the tougher team for 40 minutes?

“And if we want to be that, we’re going to have to keep going through these kinds of things to be that. But we can’t keep taking steps back…[there] ain’t no more room for error.”

Indiana carried an urgent mentality into Thursday’s matchup with the Aces – a desire to dominate the margins. Their physicality, defense, and drive staunched the Aces attack throughout the first quarter, earning a tie going into the second. The defense faltered in the second period as the Fever ceded 23 points to Las Vegas and entered the halftime break down by six, 41-35.

The main themes for the Fever throughout the season consistently orbit around defense. Indiana goes as its defense goes, and good defense bleeds into good outcomes on the offensive end of the floor.

Natasha Howard sat to Mitchell’s right during Tuesday’s postgame media session and nodded in agreement as Mitchell emphasized just how critical Indiana’s sense of urgency is as they navigate the back stretch of the season.

Howard executed that in Thursday’s game, starting with defense.

“Our defense got our offense going,” Howard said on Thursday. “That’s how we make games like that. We don’t rely on our offense a lot. We rely on our defense…When our defense is going, our offense is going.”

Howard scored 18 points on 6-for-9 shooting for the Fever as they defeated the Aces, 80-70. She grabbed 13 rebounds and three steals, leading the team in both of those respective categories.

Mitchell made good on her word, too, as she fought through a tough shooting night to bring Indiana across the finish line in the fourth quarter. She scored nine of her 21 points in the final frame, and made four of her five final field goal attempts after starting the game 4-for-19.

Mitchell also recorded four assists – tying Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald for the team-high mark – as she leaned into her playmaking amid shooting struggles. She demonstrated the critical mental toughness she described after Tuesday’s loss in Thursday’s win, and led the Fever to a crucial win over the Aces.

Indiana took the second quarter lapses and turned them upside down in the third and fourth periods – the Fever held Las Vegas to just 29 points in the second half as they stormed ahead to score 45 of their own.

Despite a season riddled with rotational inconsistency, the Fever are finally finding a groove among Caitlin Clark’s indefinite absence. Indiana demonstrated a confidence on Thursday to go out and get the job done regardless, and Howard and Mitchell spearheaded that with their dominant play.

“If we have Caitlin, great,” Sophie Cunningham said. “And we know how to play with her. If we don’t have Caitlin, great, we know how to play without her. And I think that’s just so important. It gives people confidence that when she is back, they know their role. And when she’s not, they have the confidence to come out there and make big plays for us.”

It was that confidence that allowed McDonald to let the dagger 3-pointer fly with 35 seconds on the game clock and the Fever up by just five points. Her shot sealed a massive win for the Fever, who clinched the season series with the Aces after their win on Thursday.

Indiana looks to carry that momentum into the back half of the season, but looks to Chicago on Sunday first.

“We have to just understand the urgency and attention to detail that it takes,” coach Stephanie White said of the mentality needed to maintain consistency on the floor. “We don’t have the luxury of having breakdowns, of having lapses. We have to understand the sense of urgency that it takes with each possession. One possession can change a ball game, and we’ve got to understand and value that.”

The Fever play the Sky on the road on Sunday before returning to Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Wednesday, July 30, to match up with the Phoenix Mercury.