From a shaky start to playoff chances: How Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever revived their season
A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and an evaluation of the start of her WNBA debut season.
A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and an evaluation of the start of her WNBA debut season.
During a hellish early stretch of the regular season, when Indiana played 11 games in 20 days — six of them against 2023 postseason semifinalists — Fever coach Christie Sides tried to find the silver lining. Even before Indiana broke through and won a single game, Sides took the long view, believing that the team’s early struggles would pay off later.
“We’ve had our share of blows and we’ve had to grow up really fast,” Sides said in May. “We’re having a good time getting to that point and when we get there, these guys are going to click and it’s going to be fun.”
The teams’ sentiments were prophetic, as the Fever quickly put their May woes behind them. To say that Indiana is on a roll would be an understatement — this is one of the best teams in the WNBA since the Olympic break, and they show no signs of slowing down as the playoffs approach. The Fever are 8-3 in their last 11 games, with two losses to the Minnesota Lynx and another to the Las Vegas Aces, whom they play again on Friday. They entered Wednesday night’s game with the third-best offensive rating in the league, behind only New York and Las Vegas, and the best (110.4 points per 100 possessions) in the second half of the season.
WE ARE IN.
we have officially secured a spot in the 2024 @WNBA play-offs 🔥
📝 photo.twitter.com/xK8Tg9izY4
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) September 4, 2024
The easing of the schedule has played a role in Indiana’s success, as has the month off when 11 of the team’s 12 players looked to finally develop some chemistry after the shortest preseason training camp in league history. But much more has happened as the Fever has skyrocketed up the WNBA standings and become the team no one wants to face in the postseason.
Here are four ways (with stats ahead of Wednesday’s games) the Fever accomplished it.
Let’s start with the obvious change from May to September: Clark is a significantly improved player. The numbers tell a powerful story: She’s averaging 24.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and 9.3 assists since the break, compared to 17.1/5.8/8.2 before that. But there’s more. She’s become more patient with her drops and doesn’t lose the ball as much on blitzes, which has neutralized the effectiveness of that defensive strategy against Indiana. She’s able to stretch the defense and make passes over the top instead of playing herself into a corner.
Clark has gotten physically stronger as the year has gone on. That allows her to drive to the basket and score through traffic when defenders block her on one side, and she’s made 3.5 percent more of her shots in the restricted area. The increased strength also means her jumper has become more consistent. No team has ever willingly given up 3-pointers to Clark, but that’s become a particularly bad proposition when she’s shooting 39 percent from distance since early August.
There were several adjustments to the roster, but none were as dramatic as Clark’s transformation into one of the best players in basketball.
“She plays with great pace, she plays with great tempo, she’s an elite passer,” Los Angeles coach Curt Miller said after the Sparks became the latest team the Fever avenged an earlier loss to. “Everybody talks about the logo 3s. What that does for me is — she’s got unbelievable range — but it just opens up the floor for everybody. That logo range opens up the floor. So you always, always have to guard her and you always have to pay attention to her. She’s really special.”
The fulcrum of the Fever’s offense in 2024 was seen as the pick-and-roll between Clark and Boston. But early in the year, most of Clark’s passes resulted in post-ups, and it felt like the two No. 1 picks were operating at different speeds.
Kudos to Boston, as the reigning rookie of the year has adjusted her style of play to favor Clark. In 2023, 39.2 percent of Boston’s offensive possessions came on post-ups and 11.3 percent as a roller. Now, those numbers are 29.1 and 19.1 (heading into Wednesday’s game) as she switches to Clark’s bread-and-butter pick-and-roll. With her new point guard, that means setting screens high and catching the ball at the free-throw line from the roller. From there, Boston has become a more adept decision-maker, able to scan the court for the next open player and know when to pass the ball back to Clark or take her defender off the bounce.
“I feel pretty comfortable (in the short role),” Boston said. “Being able to take that shot, that’s going to be important instead of going down there and shooting all the time.”
Boston has changed her offensive game in other subtle ways. She’s added more cuts to her repertoire, moving off the ball to take advantage of the attention paid to the Fever point guard rather than just keeping her back to the basket, despite being the recipient of some of the best entry passes in the league. Boston has also increased her individual pace by about 3.5 possessions per 40 minutes. Playing with Clark means running the floor, and Boston has to play more in transition when they share the court.
3. Healthy Kelsey Mitchell is a perfect match for Clark
An ankle injury forced Mitchell to miss the preseason and come off the bench for the first two games of the season, limiting the amount of time she spent on the court with Clark. In May, the backcourt duo played 23.9 minutes per game together. That number jumped to 27.7 in June, then 33.6 in July and 36.6 minutes split in September. For all the talk of Clark finding success with a frontcourt pick-and-roll partner or a rim-running threat like NaLyssa Smith, Mitchell has been the rookie’s true offensive soulmate.
Whether it’s Mitchell sprinting down the floor on fast breaks, or even after made baskets, or faking her defenders on strongside baseline cuts, she’s creating openings for Clark with her quickness — something that just wasn’t possible with a transverse ankle. Now the Fever can release Mitchell into space, and they also put her in a variety of screening plays in the halfcourt. Mitchell often screens for Clark on the perimeter before a big comes along to initiate a pick-and-roll, which messes up defensive assignments. Indiana will also have Mitchell running from staggers and pindowns, the constant movement allowing Clark to find openings in the defense.
“She’s one of those players that has an IQ that can take us a lot further,” Mitchell said of Clark, “so you’ve got to figure out where you fit in, know how to read her and adjust to her.”
Considering the amount of time they’ve spent on the court together, the stats Mitchell has accumulated playing without Clark have been negligible. But compared to 2023, when Mitchell played with largely the same roster minus Clark, the two-time All-Star is averaging more points in fewer minutes and a higher true-shooting percentage. Since the Olympic break, she’s the league’s second-leading scorer behind A’ja Wilson at 24.9 points per game on 49.7 percent shooting from the field. By maximizing their minutes together, the Fever’s offensive potential has been maximized.
4. Determining a rotation
One of Indiana’s biggest problems early in the season was having the wrong players on the court. In May, Kristy Wallace and Katie Lou Samuelson were averaging 20 minutes per game, while Lexie Hull was on the court less than 10 minutes a night. In August, Hull climbed to 26.4 minutes per game, and in September to 33, fittingly the player with the best on-off differential (plus-13.7 points per 100 possessions) on the team.
Clark’s early struggles led Sides and her staff to overemphasize ball-handling, with Wallace and Erica Wheeler getting more minutes to help Clark lead the offense. But that was the wrong approach. Clark needed to find a rhythm, and that would only happen with the ball in her hands. As she was used more throughout the season, she became more effective, so Indiana switched to placing play-finishers around her. Mitchell creates less and shoots more, as does Smith, and Hull either shoots off the catch or drives directly. Most of the decision-making falls to Clark and Boston, simplifying the responsibilities of their teammates.
The Fever were blessed with generational star power in back-to-back drafts. It was only a matter of time before they figured out how to work together, despite some initial discomfort. By clarifying the supporting cast’s roles, focusing Boston on the short role, and letting Clark play all of Iowa, they’ve revitalized their offense and turned their season around.
(Photo: Chet White/Getty Images)
