The Indiana Fever’s four-game win streak died Thursday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, but the way they nearly stole it back is worth talking about. Atlanta beat them 108-101. The Fever trailed by 12 in the second half. And then, with roughly five minutes left in the fourth quarter, they tied the game at 93-93 on a 9-0 run.
The thing is, Caitlin Clark was on the bench the whole time. Foul trouble kept her out. Kelsey Mitchell scored 13 of her 26 points in that fourth quarter alone. Aliyah Boston added six of her 19. Together they accounted for 19 of Indiana’s 23 points in the final period.
Coach Stephanie White didn’t really seem crushed by the loss. She pointed to that stretch as proof of something.
“I thought that group really dug in on the defensive end of the floor,” White said. “Got stops, we rebounded it well, and we moved it on offense. We made it a little bit more difficult for the Dream because the ball got side to side. We got some higher-quality looks and knocked them down.”
It was the kind of sequence that makes you wonder if the Fever are deeper than people think. Not that Clark is expendable — she still finished with 26 points, seven assists and five turnovers. But she went scoreless in the fourth quarter after sitting for an extended stretch, and the bench didn’t fold. That matters.
Atlanta, for its part, didn’t panic. Rhyne Howard hit clutch buckets down the stretch and the Dream improved to 10-4. The Fever dropped to 9-6.
The game also marked the debut of Clark’s signature shoe, which she’d been teasing for weeks. The loss kind of killed the vibe, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
Indiana gets a chance at revenge Saturday. Same opponent. Same building. We’ll see if White’s bench unit can carry that fourth-quarter momentum into a full game.
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