Fever’s White denies discord within team after win over SunAlexa Philippou
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White once more shut down reports and speculation about discord within the team following the Fever’s 85-75 victory Saturday over the Connecticut Sun.
White and Fever players were asked in the postgame news conference about the potential division, with star Caitlin Clark quipping in response, “I think it’s speculation. Opinions. I don’t know about reports.”
“I don’t think you’re talking about journalism,” White stated. “And so if we’re going to continue to create news from fans on social media or bots on social media, or whatever it may be, then that’s a problem, right? I think legitimate news sources need to report legitimate news.”
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The outside noise may swirl rampantly around Indiana, but the Fever have steadied the ship on the court after dropping to 4-4 at the end of May. They’ve won three-straight games as well as four of their last five, and with a 4-1 record in Commissioner’s Cup play are still in the hunt to repeat their in-season tournament title.
Fresh off a 30-point double-double, Clark finished on Saturday with 25 points and 5 assists, marking her 14th-career game with those stats, tying Cynthia Cooper for most within a player’s first three seasons in a league.
It was also the third time Clark has finished with consecutive 25-point games in her WNBA career. She was one of five players in double-figures against the Sun for the 8-5 Fever.
The evening didn’t come without some minor drama. With 2:30 to play and the Fever up three, Indiana was called for a team technical foul for delay of game after Clark tried to gather the ball and kicked it off the scorer’s table.
“The delay of game made no sense,” Clark stated. “It felt like [official] Tyler [Mirkovich] wanted to assert himself into the game, and that was ridiculous. Just not a point in the game [where] he needed to call that.”
Clark was later called for a separate technical with 22.2 seconds left in the game – she didn’t explain why it was called beyond saying, “I deserved it, but it was worth it.”
The Fever led by 11 points late in the first half but had to withstand a Sun rally to come out with the win. Sophie Cunningham came in clutch, scoring all of her 11 points in the fourth quarter. It was Indiana’s fourth-consecutive game where it relinquished a double-digit lead, but the squad is still 3-1 in those contests.
The Fever did just enough defensively to hang on; they are now 6-0 when allowing fewer than 80 points this season, versus 2-5 otherwise.
“I felt like we had some of our missed shots affect us maybe a little bit on the defensive end of the floor. I don’t know that there was necessarily a drop in intensity [like other recent games] …. then we found it,” White stated. “Now it wasn’t as long a stretch [of drop-off], so we’re closing the gap there, which is important.”
Added Clark: “We had a lot of missed layups tonight, and those are the little ones that can kind of help us sustain our lead rather than making it so much more difficult on ourselves.”
The Sun, meanwhile, fell to 2-13, tied for the franchise’s worst start through 15 games. They were led in scoring by Olivia Nelson-Ododa (12 points).
