Kelsey Mitchell’s injury scare is “nothing bad.” Fever expects to have top scorer heading into playoffs.

WASHINGTON, DC – Christie Sides held her breath as she saw the Indiana Fever’s leading scorer lying on the floor beneath the basket.

Kelsey Mitchell, who is averaging 19.6 points per game, clashed with a defender in the first quarter of Thursday’s regular-season finale. She was slow to get off the ground as the game moved to the other end of the field, and when she got up she was limping.

Mitchell still managed to play, shaking her left leg when she got the chance, about a minute longer until a dead ball was called. Erica Wheeler came on and Mitchell immediately went back to the locker room midway through the first quarter. She returned to the bench at the start of the second quarter and briefly wore a knee brace before removing it at the end of the bench.

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Mitchell didn’t come back into the game, but that was a precautionary measure; The Fever had secured the No. 6 seed regardless of the outcome of Thursday night’s game against the Mystics, so Sides didn’t want to take any further chances.

“Kelsey is good,” the Fever coach said. “After she went down… I made the decision right then and there that she would just get ready for Sunday.”

The Fever open their best-of-three series on the road against Connecticut on Sunday at 3 p.m.

Mitchell previously suffered a left ankle injury before the season that kept her out of training camp. This time, Mitchell said it was generally on her left side — something she said she just had to stretch out.

“I think it was more like it was the whole left side,” Mitchell told IndyStar. “But I don’t think anything big. I just think we need to take precautions. Nothing big.”

Throughout the rest of the game, Mitchell bounced up and down the bench after big hits and jogged toward her teammates during timeouts.

In the end, she played only four minutes in the 92:91 loss and scored both baskets for four points. Even without injury, Sides didn’t plan on playing in the starting lineup too often anyway. Lexie Hull was the longest starter on the floor, playing just over 21 minutes.

“I acted preemptively and maintained the right mindset about the focus of the group and what was needed,” Mitchell told IndyStar after the game. “These were decisions made by our employees and it was cool to support my team.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Kelsey Mitchell says injury scare against Washington was ‘nothing major’