UNCASVILLE, Conn. — The 2024 WNBA Playoffs begin Sunday afternoon around the nation in New York, Minnesota, Connecticut and Las Vegas. Out of the eight-team bracket, Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever had to snap the longest active playoff drought in the league to get here. By doing so, they’ve become the sole team in the field where all five starters have not played in the postseason.
The Fever are the new kids on the block on this do-or-die stage and they’re lagging behind the curve. Their first-round opponent, the Connecticut Sun, have made the playoffs for the last eight consecutive seasons.
The Sun’s starting lineup totals 128 playoff appearances with the franchise. The Fever, zero.
“Have you seen the one that says how many minutes I have in playoff games compared to the minutes of Connecticut?” Fever head coach Christie Sides quipped at team practice Saturday afternoon, 10 minutes away from the arena. “Yeah, look at that one. That’s a fun one to look at.
“You know what, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Sides added and pondered. “They don’t know… they’re just going to come out and they play hard … what they don’t know, they’re just going to keep doing. I hope they just keep doing what we’ve been doing all season.”
The Fever’s starting five all reached the peaks of the college level. Kelsey Mitchell received the Dawn Staley Award as the nation’s top guard and went to back-to-back Sweet 16s with Ohio State. Lexie Hull won the national championship at Stanford, NaLyssa Smith did so at Baylor, and so did Boston at South Carolina. Caitlin Clark just took Iowa to back-to-back Final Fours.
College is not the WNBA, but perhaps, Clark’s college-version postseason could help her.
“I don’t know if it’ll help,” Clark said. “We’ve played in a lot of big games with eyes on us all year long … you can’t put too much pressure on yourself. That’s not going to allow you to perform your best … our mood has been really great. Everybody knows what’s on the line. But at the same time, like this is basketball. Go out there and play like we’ve been playing all year long.”
The physicality of Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun, series history
The Fever probably have blotted the boxscore of the disastrous 17-point blowout defeat from when they last visited Connecticut in June. Sides benched the starters in the third quarter, with Indiana trailing by 28 points. And it was actually the bench unit that trimmed the humiliation to appear better than it really was. That win put the Sun up 3-0 in the season series.
“I’m gonna start with, you can’t at this level coach effort,” Sides had said back in June.
But when the Sun revisited Gainbridge Fieldhouse in late August looking for the season sweep, the post-Olympic break 7-1 Fever were up to the challenge. Kelsey Mitchell, who is now tied all-time for the most regular-season appearances before playing in the playoffs, later said she didn’t care about the result that evening, as long as the Fever didn’t get bullied by Connecticut.
“I think for us, it was just about not taking it no more,” Mitchell said in August.
The Sun, renowned for their physicality and badgering nature, got punked by Indiana. It didn’t prevent Alyssa Thomas from leveling Clark to the floor in high ball-screen action. But Aliyah Boston set the tone physically by withstanding the three-headed Sun frontcourt, including Thomas. Soon throughout, Fever players dove to the floor and chased after offensive rebounds.
That night had the playoff atmosphere: the hustle, the grit, the shotmaking. Now, it’s here.
“I assume it’s going to be more physical,” Clark said Saturday. “The refs might not call as much, and you just have to expect that. Everybody’s gonna amp it up, everybody’s fighting for something … you would expect that intensity to be a little bit more. That’s how we’re approaching it … we gotta get every loose ball, we need to be diving on the floor.”
Christie Sides’ preparation for first playoff game as Fever head coach
Indiana’s disadvantage going into the series, as the younger side, was they had little time to prepare. The final night of the regular season was also when they figured out their destination toward the East Coast, as opposed to flying out to Las Vegas. That left Friday, Saturday and hours before tip-off Sunday. But Sides wanted to be intentional about embellishing this moment.
Indiana’s staff and players ventured slightly more in depth on scout and film than normal, Sides said. Defensive assistant coach Jesse Miller dug into Connecticut’s schemes, while the Fever’s offensive coach Paul Miller deliberated how to break them. The staff put the information players needed into booklets for this fancier occasion. Sides didn’t want major changes, only little ones.
“They got their books yesterday and they were like, ‘We don’t get this every time,’” Sides described. “It’s the playoffs. Got to do things a little different. So just trying to find ways, little things for them that give them a little bit more. Because we are. This is different. This is next level … I hope they read it.”
The effectiveness of the books will be put to the test Sunday afternoon.
The Sun have played, and been able to rest, in Connecticut since last Tuesday.
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