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INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell didn’t care for the result of Wednesday night’s colossal test versus the Connecticut Sun. She didn’t care, as long as the Fever didn’t get bullied and swept on the season by the second-best team in the league. Mitchell, of course, did play like she cared. The vet clutched up and stuck her fourth 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter.
It regained the 78-77 lead for the Fever, who held on for a huge 84-80 win.
Mitchell and Caitlin Clark — who set the WNBA rookie 3-point record — spoke postgame as if they knew the Sun were going to waltz into Gainbridge Fieldhouse and, just as they’ve done to the Fever on the East Coast, try to physically bulldoze them to another win while making it look tauntingly easy with their defense and team chemistry. But yet another raucous sellout awaited Connecticut for their second time here.
“We had a lot of experience throughout the course of our first couple, what 12 games, of Connecticut and New York, and teams like that,” Mitchell said afterward. “We’ve already experienced what it feels like to lose and have to battle and withstand that kind of energy. I think for us, it was just about not taking it no more… you want to win or you don’t, so.”
With four minutes to go in the third quarter and the Fever only leading by three points, Clark stuck her trademarked dribble-drive, behind-the-back and step-back triple over Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington. The Sun guard did pickpocket Clark occasionally, but wasn’t all over her like past meetings. Carrington did respond on the next play with her own 3-pointer — and shushing.
Clark came right back at Carrington, drove, and scored.
On Connecticut’s ensuing possession, Clark got leveled by an Alyssa Thomas screen.
Clark got up and was held by three teammates. She later gave props to the screen.
There, in an instant, came flashbacks to the start of the season when Clark got leveled at home by Breanna Stewart in the 36-point blowout by the New York Liberty. It’s when the Fever were in the process of figuring out their identity and learning each other, in the midst of an excruciating schedule. And days after that, the Fever let their late lead slip in an 88-84 home loss to the Sun.
On Wednesday night, Connecticut didn’t score in roughly the final three minutes.
Fever head coach Christie Sides proud of effort, many winning pieces
Fever center Aliyah Boston set the tone in the first quarter, holding her own with Connecticut’s three veteran frontcourt players. Soon, over the next three quarters, everyone on Indiana was diving for loose balls. It is the right basketball play, and Connecticut did it too, no less, but the way Indiana did it stood out: you leaned back in fear of collisions and in awe of the underdog spirit.
Only, the Fever didn’t think of themselves that way.
Lexie Hull had already done her job toward the end of the third quarter. She was plugged into the starting lineup Wednesday night and drained four 3-pointers. Hull has gotten more minutes lately, but has rarely gotten starts. Quite frankly, Hull isn’t expected to make that many outside shots. And after Hull did so, she still tracked and dashed for her fifth offensive rebound.
She kept the play alive, and it wheeled around to Clark, who missed from the outside.
Recently healthy backup forward Temi Fagbenle nose-dived for the jump ball, and she got the result.
Fagbenle didn’t score and had the best +/- of anyone on the night.
“The maturity and the toughness that my players showed tonight was just incredible,” Fever head coach Christie Sides said. “We’re watching them just grow up, from where we started to where we are now… I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud of a group of people in my life.”
Fever are playing together and laughing together
The Fever just cooled off one of hottest teams in the standings following the Olympic break. The Sun were 4-1 in their past five and only hiccuped at the Atlanta Dream. They redeemed it by just beating the WNBA’s-best Liberty. Indiana is now 4-1 in their past five games and happened to catch the Minnesota Lynx at an inopportune time. They’re the only undefeated team post-break.
Indiana dodged the season sweep by the Seattle Storm and now the Sun as well in the back half of the season.
Wednesday night was probably the most lighthearted postgame press conference this season. While at the podium, Hull said something that sounded wrong out of context, and Clark could not help herself and began laughing, interrupting. All Mitchell could do was bury her head in her arms, mere minutes after the anecdote about saying to the team they'll hold out tough.
“I think the word joy you just used is something that we couldn’t find a lot of early,” Sides said. “You got to have fun playing this game, and that joy is so important. When we came out of the Olympic break and won those two games, it was a different feel out there… there’s this joy.”
Heck, things are different. That snapped an 11-game Fever losing streak to the Sun.
It felt like the playoffs: the hustle, the battle of runs, the shotmaking. All of it.
That’s where the Fever are heading, and they’re slamming the door on getting caught.
