Fever Earn Impressive Victory as Playoff Push Continues
Thu, Aug 29, 2024, 2:32 AM
By Madie Chandler | FeverBasketball.com
The Indiana Fever entered Wednesday’s matchup with the Connecticut Sun down 0-3 in the four-game season series. Despite a lopsided record against the Sun, the Fever’s outings against them this season are reflective of Indiana’s sustained improvement over the course of the year, and culminated in an 84-80 victory in the fourth and final meeting of the season.
“We’re night and day different,” Caitlin Clark said of the Fever progress since first clashing with Connecticut. “And that’s what you’re going to see with a young group. Obviously, we’re young. We have some older players, but a lot of the people that we have in our lineup are younger, so just figuring each other out and learning, I think, has got us a long way.”
The first matchup between these foes saw Connecticut take the game comfortably, winning 92-71. The tone set by that 21-point disparity evaporated in the second meeting, as Indiana lost again, but this time by just four points. The third and most recent contest saw the Fever fall by only three points to the WNBA’s second-place Sun.
But just 2:08 into the first quarter of Wednesday’s game, the Fever found themselves on the wrong side of an 8-2 hole entering a timeout.
Coming out of the timeout, Indiana would grit its way to a 10-0 run. Aliyah Boston made a dominant post move for a layup. Clark drained a 3-pointer that became the shot that broke the WNBA’s rookie 3-point field goals in a single season record. Kelsey Mitchell made a cut to open up a path to the rim, producing an and-one for the Fever.
And all along Lexie Hull scrapped in the margins, grabbing offensive rebounds, jumping into passing lanes, and operating as the Swiss army knife of Indiana’s defense. She drew the DeWanna Bonner assignment, and although she gave up nearly four inches in height, held Bonner to 13 points on just 4-of-13 shooting.
Hull, with averages of 4.6 points and 1.6 rebounds on the season, is flourishing for the Fever at just the right time. After being inserted into the starting lineup on Wednesday, her 17 points, eight rebounds, and two assists were pivotal in Indiana’s victory against Connecticut. Of her eight boards, six were off the offensive glass, and Hull’s two free throws with 19 seconds left on the clock put the Fever up by four points and sealed the win against the league’s second-ranked squad.
“Lexie stayed locked in and ready to go when her number was called, and she’s just done everything that we needed to do to get these wins and to be successful,” coach Christie Sides said.
Indiana is finding a swagger at the right time – in five Fever games since the Olympic break, Kelsey Mitchell has been on a scorching scoring run. She finished with 23 points against the Sun, and is averaging 25.6 points in Indiana’s current five game stretch.
Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston are also both enjoying stretches of elevated play as Clark leads the team – and the league – in assists with 8.2 per contest, and Boston’s rebounding efforts have been pivotal in Indiana’s hunt for a spot in the WNBA’s playoffs. Boston has two 15-rebound games in the last five, but made her mark as a playmaker in Wednesday’s contest as she tallied a team-high eight assists.
The confidence boost that flows from good outcomes is powering a Fever push for playoffs as each player increases production down the stretch of the season.
“When you can stack confidence from game to game, that’s the biggest thing for a team,” Clark said. “And especially going on runs within the game. That’s confidence, too. So I think you’re just seeing our confidence grow at a different level than it was the beginning of the season, I think that’s what’s been motivating us most.”
Indiana will look to build on that mojo on Friday as they travel to Chicago to close out the season series with the Sky.
