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Alexa Philippou, ESPN
CHICAGO – The first three games between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky have been competitive, with those June games decided by a combined 10 points.
But that wasn’t the case Friday, in the teams’ fourth and final meeting of the regular season: The Fever (16-16) cruised to a 100-81 win — and a 27-point lead — to reach the .500 mark for the first time since May 2022, when they were just 2-2. Indiana’s 103 consecutive games under .500 was the third-longest streak in WNBA history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The last time a team finished .500 or better in August? It was in 2016, the final season for legend Tamika Catching.
Behind their biggest win of the season, Fever also secured a 3-1 win in the season series against Team Sky.
“I’m happy to be at .500 right now,” Indiana coach Christy Sides said. “It’s been a long time since a Fever has been at .500. I’m very proud of this and where we’ve been since the beginning. But I never had any doubt that we could be here.”
Indiana has been one of the hottest teams in the league since the Olympic break, with five wins and one loss during that stretch. By reaching the 100-point mark on Friday — a season-high in scoring — the Fever proved once again that it has the league’s best offense since mid-June and has become one of the WNBA’s most dangerous teams.
Caitlin Clark, a rookie sensation, dazzled with a career-high 31 points and 12 assists. She is the fifth player in WNBA history to score 30 points and dish out 10 assists in a game, and the third player to do so in regulation time.
Chicago, which held a Barbie Night in honor of rising star Angel Reyes, has lost five straight games and six of seven in the second half. Michaela Onyenwere and Lindsey Allen scored 20 and 19 points, respectively, for the Sky.
Here are three takeaways from the competition.
Hot Fiver Attack Shows No Let Up
Indiana has had the league’s best offensive rating since June 13, and Friday’s performance will only boost that number.
After a slow start and trailing by 13 points, Fever managed to get a positive result by upping the tempo and making three-point shots. Mitchell (23 points) led the charge with 18 points in the first half—her most in a first half this season—but she and Clarke hit 6-of-9 three-point attempts in the first 20 minutes. The same pace continued in the second half, allowing Fever to have one of its best three-point nights of the season (13-of-29).
Clark will be the headliner on her career night, but the team was also quick to praise the defensive contributions of Temi Fagbenle, who was the team’s best player — plus 29 points off the bench — and Lexi Hull, who kept her recent hot shooting (3-of-4 from deep) and Nalyssa Smith, whose 11 points in the third quarter helped stabilize the fever when Alyah Boston went to the bench in foul trouble.
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Angel Reyes scores a stunning double with a stunning basket.
Angel Reyes continues her double-digit win streak with a sweet basket against Team Fever.
Keep sliding in the sky
The Sky had all the momentum early Friday and created an offensive flow that allowed them to build a 24-11 lead. Coach Teresa Witherspoon preached a next-man-up mentality before the game with leading scorer Chennedy Carter out (health and safety protocols), and Allen and Onen answered the call, starting the game with a combined 7-of-9 from the field and 3-of-3 from the three-point arc. In the first half, with the Sky trailing by just five points, those two players combined for 28 of Chicago’s 42 points.
Late-game play has been a point of contention for the Sky in recent games, but Friday was a case of the wheels falling off. The Fever cut the deficit to three points by the end of the first quarter, then won the middle two quarters by a combined 19 points. Even when Chicago was within single digits in the third, no one ever felt like Indiana was truly losing control.
Since the season resumed, Witherspoon has been urging her team to be more disciplined defensively, to recognize the scout and execute. Allowing 100 points — the most the Sky have allowed all season — and allowing the Fever to get almost everything they wanted offensively was the exact opposite.
“We have a lot of things we need to fix, and it starts on the defensive side of the ball,” Witherspoon said. “We’re not disrupting opponents. We’re allowing teams to get shots where they want, when they want.”
“Defense is the hardest thing you’re going to play in this game. In the third quarter, we sent them to the line over and over again.”
Goalie Rachel Banham, who joined the team last month in a deal that sent then-leading scorer Marina Mabry to Connecticut, didn’t hesitate in the postgame press conference, saying, “We lacked effort at times.”
“If you don’t want to get beat up, we have a problem,” she said. “Then don’t wear the uniform. You better feel it in your chest.”
Chicago doesn’t have much time to get their act together with a tough away game against Minnesota on Sunday and Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The qualifying race just got more interesting.
Don’t look now, but if the regular season ended today, the Fever would earn the sixth seed in the playoffs, where they have a tiebreaker with the Phoenix Mercury, who also went 16-16.
Much could still change over the next three weeks, but the idea of the Fever making it to the top six in the postseason seemed far-fetched when they started 2024 with a 1-8 record. Indiana fans should be comfortable with where the team stands heading into the playoffs.
Meanwhile, Chicago (11-20) is clinging to eighth place in the NBA, with its worst losing streak of the season. However, it is still one game ahead of the Atlanta Dream, who fell to the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces on Friday night. The Dream failed to capitalize on the struggling Sky, losing four straight games after beating the Storm, Sun and Mercury early in the second half. With the Wings’ win over the Lynx, Dallas can’t be ruled out either, as it is now two games behind Chicago (as is Washington).
A lot can happen in three weeks, but if the Sky are to play until late September, they need to fix their problems quickly before a sixth straight postseason berth slips away.
