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The Indiana Fever finally ran out of gas Sunday afternoon.
It just took the best team in the WNBA, playing at home, to make it happen.
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The Minnesota Lynx defeated Indiana, 108-100, snapping the Fever’s five-game winning streak and improving to a league-best 25-6. Minnesota extended its own winning streak to 10 straight, while Indiana fell to 19-11.
The Lynx were clearly the better team on Sunday at the Target Center and made several huge plays when Indiana threatened to complete a furious fourth-quarter comeback.
But the WNBA certainly didn’t do the Fever any favors.
Indiana was playing its third road game in six days, with stops in Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis, and this one started roughly 36 hours after Friday’s late game in Portland.
Despite that, the Fever showed plenty of fight.
Minnesota appeared to put the game away when Courtney Williams’ jumper gave the Lynx a 98-84 lead with 5:39 remaining.
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Indiana responded with a 14-2 run to pull within 100-98, forcing Minnesota to execute under pressure after seemingly having the game wrapped up.
Olivia Miles slowed the comeback, and Courtney Williams helped close it out.
Miles converted an and-one with 58 seconds remaining, pushing Minnesota’s lead back to 105-98 and effectively sealing the victory. The three-point play gave Miles 28 points on a ridiculous 11-of-14 shooting.
Williams added a clutch basket with 32 seconds left to put the game out of reach. She finished with 27 points on 12-of-20 shooting, meaning the two Minnesota guards combined for 55 points.
Indiana’s Big Three drove the action on the other end.
Kelsey Mitchell served as the scoring engine, pouring in 37 points on 14-of-21 shooting. She connected on six of her eight three-point attempts.
Caitlin Clark controlled the offense as a facilitator, finishing with 19 points and 10 assists for her eighth double-double this season. Aliyah Boston contributed across the board with 15 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.
Together, Mitchell, Clark and Boston accounted for 71 of Indiana’s 100 points and 20 of its 27 assists.
The Fever shot 57% from the field and scored at least 100 points for the sixth consecutive game, extending the longest such streak in WNBA history.
Indiana’s offense wasn’t the problem, but the team looked tired on the defensive end at times. Looking at their recent schedule, it’s not hard to see why.
Indiana played Friday night in Portland in a game that didn’t begin until 10 p.m. ET. It ended after midnight on the East Coast.
The Fever then had Saturday to travel two time zones east before Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET tipoff in Minnesota.
That left roughly 36 hours between the final buzzer in Portland and the opening tip against the Lynx, with a travel day in between.
Technically, it wasn’t a back-to-back.
In practical terms, it wasn’t much better.
And the Portland-to-Minnesota turnaround was only the final portion of a demanding stretch for Indiana’s best players.
Clark, Mitchell and Boston all participated in the WNBA All-Star Game in Chicago last Saturday. The Fever then traveled across the country to play Seattle on Tuesday, remained in the Pacific Northwest for Friday’s game in Portland and flew east to Minnesota for Sunday’s matchup.
That’s an All-Star break followed by three road games in three different cities over nine days.
Some “break.”
Clark raised concerns about the schedule immediately after the All-Star Game.
“It’s a tough turnaround, and the Fever probably have one of the quickest turnarounds,” Clark said. “We played on Wednesday, and I’m going home tonight and I’m flying to Seattle tomorrow.”
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She wasn’t alone.
Several All-Star players questioned the lack of recovery time, including New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart.
“If you want it to be competitive, then there needs to be more time,” Stewart said while discussing the All-Star Game. “I can’t play on Wednesday, and then I have a game on Tuesday, and you want me to go balls to the walls on Saturday.”
The Fever’s subsequent schedule illustrated the larger problem.
ESPN reported during the broadcast that Clark had been “getting sick” before Sunday’s game.
The Fever didn’t immediately provide additional information, and there’s no way to know whether it had anything to do with exhaustion, travel or an unrelated illness.
Still, Clark clearly wasn’t entering the game under ideal circumstances.
That made the league’s scheduling decision especially puzzling.
This wasn’t an ordinary regular-season matchup. It was a marquee Sunday afternoon national television game on ABC featuring the WNBA’s best team against its most popular team in an important weekend sports time slot.
The WNBA had every reason to want both teams, and especially its biggest stars, at their best.
Instead, it sent Indiana into the showcase less than two days after a late game on the other side of the country.
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The good news for the Fever is that the gauntlet is finally over.
Indiana is going home and doesn’t play again until Thursday against the Las Vegas Aces, giving the team three full days without a game after a stretch that sent its All-Stars from Chicago to Seattle, Portland and Minnesota.
The Fever earned the rest.
The WNBA should have given them more of it before Sunday.
