Indiana Fever star blames 'soft' team for 88-77 loss to Golden State Valkyries

The Indiana Fever lost to the Golden State Valkyries Thursday night because team was "soft," Kelsey Mitchell told reporters following the game.

More: Indiana Fever's Caitlin Clark addresses constant physical attacks from WNBA peers

"They made us pay by just being stronger and being tougher," she continued. "50-50 balls, deflections, getting the passing lanes. That's just a piece of just being aggressive and having an ability to, like, look at your best player, and be like, ‘Nah, they gonna be aggressive.’ And I think that we allowed it, kind of tucked our tail a little bit tonight, on the aggression side."

Her teammate Caitlin Clark, who only had two points in the first half of the game, also weighed in on the surprise defeat. 

"I think we get these leads, we get up 10, we get up 12, and I thought that's where we really grew versus Connecticut, we really took a step forward and kept our foot on the gas and built out our lead and got it up to 20," she said.

"I  thought we were kind of in the phase of not (giving up those leads) anymore. And then we got our lead to 12 (against the Valkyries), and then we kind of go on a stretch of turning the ball over… We got to be able to grow in that area," Clark added.

The Fever will return home to host the Las Vegas Aces for the first time this season on June 22.