On his 1978 album Bruised Orange, the late John Prine wrote, “That’s the way that the world goes ’round / You’re up one day, the next you’re down / It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown / That’s the way that the world goes round.”
Don’t Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever know it.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were touted as title contenders entering the season, but faced immediate questions after giving up 107 points in a loss to the Dallas Wings in their highly anticipated opener. They then won three of their next four to improve to 4-2 before embarking on a West Coast road trip that ended with an embarrassing loss to the expansion Portland Fire last Saturday.
Over the past five days, every play, sideline interaction and quote was picked apart. Big-name journalists were spreading fake rumors that coach Stephanie White had been fired, national podcasts were suggesting Clark be benched and Sophie Cunningham revealed the Fever had a team meeting.
Caitlin Clark and Stephanie White are downplaying drama, but Fever are clearly feeling the heat
Lindsay Gibbs
All of which made Thursday’s game against Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream as close to a must-win as you can get in early June. Clark and the Fever are back up after an 83-71 victory in the first meeting between the teams since the Fever eliminated the Dream in the first round of the playoffs last season.
“Great response, not only by myself but by this team,” Clark said during her walk-off interview on the broadcast. “Resilient, and I think it spoke a lot to our character and what we’re gonna be about for us to respond from the game we had in Portland to showing what we can do tonight. Pretty impressive versus a team like Atlanta.”
Clark, who scored six points on 1 of 7 shooting and nearly fouled out against the Fire, once again shot terribly (6 of 17 overall, including 2 of 8 from 3-point range), but finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and eight assists while battling an illness that forced her to throw up during the game. “I didn’t shoot the ball maybe as well as I would have liked, but this was probably one of the best floor games that I’ve played in my time in the W. So really proud of that,” Clark said.
Clark’s inconsistent shooting remains a concern — she’s now at 38.2% overall for the season — but we saw a brief glimpse of her old self in the third quarter when she scored or assisted on seven consecutive points to put the Fever in front for good. Her step-back 3 from 25 feet during that run was the highlight of the night.
More importantly, Clark played her best defensive game of the season, and so did the Fever. “Just went back and watched a lot of clips, especially defensively, and working with coach [Briann] January to find a way to make it a little easier on myself,” Clark said. “Thought I played really, really good defense tonight.”
The Fever held the Dream, who entered the game in second place at 6-2, to a season-low 71 points on a season-worst 34.3% shooting. Rhyne Howard, who was coming off a 36-point outing, finished with eight points, while Allisha Gray and Jordin Canada shot a combined 9 of 30.
“I liked our activity level. I thought that — figuratively, of course, — we hit first,” White said. “We were the aggressor. We were active, we were anticipating. They felt us, they felt our energy. I thought our grit and our toughness was as good as its been all year long. For the most part, we did a great job of gang rebounding and finishing plays.”
The Fever didn’t win a championship on Thursday, but their performance was a reminder that their season didn’t end last weekend in Portland either.
“It feels great,” White said after the win. “There’s a lot of ups and downs in this league.”
That’s the way that the league goes ’round.