Adversity mounts, urgency grows for Fever playoff hopes
Injuries, turnovers, and foul trouble have left Indiana vulnerable with 10 games left and Caitlin Clark still sidelined.
Ready or not, the Indiana Fever have reached the final stretch of the WNBA season. With just over three weeks remaining, they must address ongoing issues — valuing the ball, point-of-attack defense, and defending without fouling — while stacking wins to secure a second straight playoff berth.
It has been a whirlwind season, with one setback after another.
The Fever have dealt with injuries since the opening week of training camp, and they didn’t expect star guard Caitlin Clark to have appeared in only 13 games to this point. While they anticipate her return, the focus remains on the players available now — which currently includes two signed to 7-day hardship contracts because all three point guards are sidelined.
At 18-16, the Fever sit seventh in the standings. Eight teams advance to the playoffs, but Los Angeles, Seattle, and even Washington are closing in — which makes the team’s last two performances even tougher to swallow.
Wins they should have had in games they led, fouled often, and failed to complete the comeback. Over the last week, including today in Connecticut, the Fever are facing the bottom four teams in the league standings. And through three of those four games, they have only one win to show for it.
They lost to Dallas on Tuesday and Washington on Friday — and worse, both games were at home.
“We've faced a lot of adversity, but we should be used to that by now,” said guard Sophie Cunningham, who celebrated her 29th birthday on Saturday. “I think they just kind of outworked us a little bit and that just can't be our excuse.”
Turnovers and defending without fouling remain the Fever’s biggest issues.
“I think we over-dribbled at times,” head coach Stephanie White said of the middle-of-the-game run made by the Mystics to take control of the game. “Our off-ball movement wasn't there. We did a lot of standing. It's almost like we gave the ball to Kelsey (Mitchell) and just tried to watch her work. And that's not when we're at our best.
“We know that after our injuries, our margin for error is smaller. And I think it was something like a 22-7 run at the end of the second, beginning of the third quarter. And those are hard to recover from any time, really, but (especially) when you're missing pieces.”