The much-anticipated first professional meeting between Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers will have to wait.
Clark’s Indiana Fever will visit Bueckers’ Dallas Wings on Friday night, but Clark will watch from the bench due to a left groin injury that kept her out of her team’s 85-75 home loss to the Los Angeles Sparks on Thursday.
Clark was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, and Bueckers was the No. 1 overall selection this year.
The Fever (7-8) were doing just fine without Clark for three quarters against Los Angeles, but they got outscored 35-17 in the fourth to drop to 2-4 in games that Clark has missed. She was sidelined earlier by a quad injury.
“We haven’t shown a killer instinct yet,” Indiana coach Stephanie White said. “We have had a tendency to relax in those moments. We’ve had empty possessions where we’ve been too lax with the basketball and have either taken poor shots or not valued every opportunity we have.
“It’s just a moment of mental lapses or mental relaxation that you can’t have in this league.”
Bueckers leads the Wings in scoring (17.7 points per game), assists (5.8 per game) and steals (1.8 per game), but it was the arrival of another newcomer — Li Yueru — that provided a recent boost.
Dallas (4-12) started the season 1-11 but has won three of four games since acquiring Yueru in a trade with the Seattle Storm on June 14. She has averaged 7.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 23.5 minutes with her new team.
Yueru amassed 10 points and a career-high 15 rebounds when she made her first start for the Wings in a 68-55 victory against the visiting Atlanta Dream on Tuesday.
“She’s just an amazing player,” the Wings’ second-leading leading scorer, Arike Ogunbowale, said of Yueru. “Obviously she hasn’t been with us for a long time, but she’s a really smart player and she’s picking it up. … She’s a really great player, and I’m glad she’s on our team.”
Yueru, who is 6-foot-7, has provided a lift to Dallas’ defense. She helped the Wings hold Atlanta’s Brittany Griner to two points and six rebounds in 18 minutes. The Dream had a season-low point total and shot just 23.4 percent from the floor and 7-for-34 (20.6 percent) on 3-point attempts. Dallas had a 44-37 edge in rebounds.
“She is incredibly smart and physical, just really good with her positioning,” Wings coach Chris Koclanes said of Yueru.
–Field Level Media
