Despite originally hitting the threshold for total technical fouls in a season to warrant a one-game suspension with her eighth, Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark will play in the WNBA’s marquee matchup Tuesday against the visiting New York Liberty. It’s a 7:30 ET tip on ESPN.
Indiana ended a two-game losing streak Saturday with a 90-86 escape at Chicago behind 26 points and 11 assists from Clark, her WNBA single-season-record sixth game of at least 25 points and 10 assists. Clark also picked up her eighth technical foul of the year when she made contact with an official out of bounds along the baseline during the third quarter. The crew chief stated after that game that the official “deemed that Clark intentionally made contact; therefore, a technical foul was assessed.”
However, a bump from the Sky’s Natasha Cloud appeared to have caused Clark’s momentum to take her into the referee, and the technical was rescinded by the league less than two hours after the game. Fever games are becoming the most physical in the WNBA, with other players not liking the attention Clark and Sophie Cunningham are getting.
There was nearly a brawl between the teams Saturday after the Sky’s DiJonai Carrington was assessed a flagrant 2 and ejected after a hard foul across the face and neck of Cunningham in the first quarter. The WNBA right now is where the NBA was in the 1980s in terms of physical play, etc. But sticking to on the court, Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell had 27 points Saturday to set the WNBA single-season mark of 16 straight games scoring at least 20 points.
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Liberty vs. Fever same-game parlay
- Indiana money line
- Kelsey Mitchell 20+ points
- Alt Under 202.5
FanDuel SGP price: +152
Mitchell and Clark have combined for 516 points over the past 10 games, a league record for any teammate duo over any 10-game span. They have scored at least 25 points in the same game eight times this season, tied for second-most 25+ scoring games by a duo in league history. Mitchell is -115 for at least 25 tonight and Clark +150.
New York is on one of the league’s longest active winning streaks at four in a row, and the Liberty trounced the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, 111-71, in Brooklyn on Sunday. Normally, that would have been maybe the most impressive win by any team this season, but the Aces were playing their second game in less than 24 hours and rested their star trio of A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young. So that nonsense doesn’t just happen in the NBA.
With the game so out of hand, the Liberty were able to limit the minutes of their starters – superstar Breanna Stewart played a season-low 23 — and the New York bench scored 58 points, the third-most by the Liberty reserves ever and most since 2017.
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Tonight’s game should see points aplenty. Indiana leads the league in scoring at 95.9 PPG, while New York has scored at least 92 points in eight consecutive games, the longest such streak in WNBA history. The Liberty have now scored at least 110 points twice, a team first in a season.
These clubs could easily meet in the playoffs and have split two regular-season meetings, each winning at home and rallying from a double-digit deficit in doing so. Clark averaged 13.5 points and 8.0 assists and Mitchell 27.0 points. Stewart averaged 28.0 PPG.
The Liberty have largely been beating up on bad or short-handed teams of late, whereas four of their past five losses came against likely playoff teams like the Fever. New York is still short-handed itself, remaining without the injured Leonie Fiebich and Satou Sabally. While both are tremendous offensive clubs, a WNBA game with a least 203 points scored is pretty rare short of overtime. Models I have checked have 190 total points tonight. Check out other expert picks in the SportsLine daily newsletter.
