After one week of the regular season, the Indiana Fever and New York Liberty already have made WNBA history.
On Saturday, the defending champion Liberty and the Caitlin Clark-led Fever meet in an early blockbuster clash in Indianapolis.
The Liberty (2-0) are coming off a record-setting game from beyond the arc Thursday with 19 3-pointers in a 99-74 victory against the Chicago Sky.
Natasha Cloud led the way with four 3-pointers and 18 points, one of five Liberty players in double figures. Eight players connected at least once from deep in the runaway win, including a 4-for-4 effort off the bench by Kennedy Burke.
Despite the score, head coach Sandy Brondello was not satisfied with New York’s effort against the Sky.
“A lot of areas we can get better at,” she said. “I’m gonna have joy because we won a game but we’re nowhere near where we need to be on the offensive end and defensively overall, we were solid, but we still had breakdowns there, too.”
New York struggled to rebound consistently, grabbing only three rebounds on the offensive end of the court, with Chicago finishing with a 36-28 advantage on the glass.
The Fever (2-1) followed up their own one-sided win over the Sky to start the season with two games against the Atlanta Dream in matchups that looked and felt like playoff matchups.
After Clark broke the league record for most career games (six) with at least 25 points and 10 assists in a 91-90 loss to the Dream on Tuesday, the Fever bounced back Thursday in an 81-76 win.
It was not Clark leading the way Thursday but league veteran Natasha Howard. The two-time All Star scored a game-high 26 points as fouls inhibited Dream stars Brittney Griner and Allisha Gray from making a bigger impact with a combined 16 points.
Indiana, known for its offensive firepower with Clark, veteran Kelsey Mitchell and third-year forward Aliyah Boston, defeated Atlanta with improved work on the defensive end of the court, something they will need against the Liberty on Saturday.
“I felt like our defensive energy, physicality, and disruption was better,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “We made it more difficult for them, moving the ball around the perimeter. We executed better in our ball screen defense. I felt like we had each other’s back a little bit more and we played through breakdowns.”
–Field Level Media
