The Indiana Fever survived Caitlin Clark’s absence.
After handing the defending WNBA champion New York Liberty their first loss of the season, 102-88, on Saturday in Indianapolis in Clark’s return from a five-game absence due to a left quad injury, the Fever (5-5) will try to build more momentum when they host the struggling Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night.
“Emotionally, it’s a relief, it’s a lift,” Indiana coach Stephanie White said of Clark’s return. “The biggest thing is this team is resilient. It hasn’t been easy, and it’s not going to be.
“Winning is hard. You’ve got to go through the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows. This group, they stay together. They draw strength from one another; I draw strength from them. Every single day we take one step forward together. We’re building trust.”
Beginning Tuesday, the Fever — who went 2-3 during Clark’s absence — will play six games, including four on the road, in 11 days.
“My legs felt really strong. I felt in good shape,” Clark said after playing more than 31 minutes and finishing with 32 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. “A lot of that is credit to our medical team. They have kept me in shape. Now for me, it’s just how I recover, especially with the schedule that we have coming up.”
The Sun (2-8), who took advantage of Clark’s absence to win 85-83 on May 30 at Indiana, have tied the franchise record for the worst 10-game start after a 78-66 home loss to Chicago on Sunday.
“I feel that we were too soft, defensively and offensively,” Connecticut coach Rachid Meziane said.
The Sun’s bench got outscored by the Sky bench 36-2. On top of that, Connecticut made just 39.1 percent of its shots (25-of-64) — the fifth time this season the Sun shot worse than 40 percent from the floor.
“I think we take ourselves out of the game when we slow the offense down,” said Marina Mabrey, who led Connecticut with 22 points. “Every time that we slow our offense down, we create more turnovers for ourselves, our spacing isn’t as good and then we’re back in transition defense and it’s been really hard for us in transition defense.
“I think that’s a pattern. We need to move with pace, but also be calm. I think that’s something that we’re really having a problem with.”
–Field Level Media
