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Michael Voepel
MINNEAPOLIS — The Indiana Fever were without star guard Caitlin Clark, were 10.5-point underdogs and were playing on the home court of the WNBA’s first-place team, the Minnesota Lynx.
None of that stopped the Fever from winning the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup final Tuesday, 74-59, and taking home the league’s in-season championship. They did it with Clark, last season’s Rookie of the Year, sidelined for a third consecutive game because of a groin injury. She was watching from the bench at Target Center, and her teammates gave her a lot to cheer.
“We have a resilient group, you know?” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “They’re tough, mentally and physically. They pull for one another. I’m just really proud. We’re going to continue to get better. Caitlin is a player who has a high usage rate, has the ball in her hands a lot. Learning to play without her, learning to make big plays in tough moments on both ends of the floor is important.”
Clark sat out five games earlier this season because of a quad injury. The Fever also lost one of their marquee free agent signings, guard/forward DeWanna Bonner, on June 25. She no longer wanted to play for the Fever, saying it wasn’t a good fit, and Indiana waived her.
So Indiana (8-8) has been through plenty of ups and downs not even halfway through the season. But Tuesday’s victory gave the Fever a confidence boost and possibly sent a message to the rest of the league.
“I think we’ve got a team full of givers,” said guard Kelsey Mitchell, the longest-tenured Fever player in her eighth season. “That’s what our team is all about. It felt good to get a win under gut-check circumstances. To have so much going on and still stay consistently for each other, it was beautiful. It felt really amazing.”
Forward Natasha Howard, a veteran in her first season with the Fever after signing as a free agent, was the game’s MVP with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists. Aliyah Boston, the 2023 Rookie of the Year and a No. 1 pick like Clark, had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists.
The Fever’s guard corps minus Clark — Mitchell, Aari McDonald, Lexie Hull, Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Colson — combined for 46 points. And as a team, the Fever’s defense went into lock-down mode in the second quarter, holding the Lynx scoreless for the last 8:13 of the half and taking control.
The last time Minnesota had gone at least eight consecutive minutes in a game without scoring was in August 2011 — before the Lynx had won the first of their four WNBA championships. That came later that season.
Why were the Fever so effective on defense? Howard gets a lot of credit. She was the WNBA’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2019, when she was with the Seattle Storm. On Tuesday, she was key in holding Minnesota’s star Napheesa Collier, the WNBA’s leading scorer at 24.4 points, to only 12 on 6-of-18 shooting.
“They kind of got their rhythm going, and we just sort of lost ours,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “We didn’t have the usual sort of fortitude, fight and response to physicality.”
The Commissioner’s Cup, which was introduced in 2021, now has had five winners: Seattle, Las Vegas, New York, Minnesota and Indiana. The winning team’s players share a $500,000 prize pool and take home a trophy.
Indiana last won the WNBA championship in 2012, so it has been a while since the Fever were able to celebrate the way they did Tuesday.
As for Clark’s return, White said the Fever are not going to rush it. Clark has done some noncontact workouts in recent days. She is one of the WNBA All-Star captains, along with Collier, for the July 19 game in Indianapolis. The Fever have seven games left before the All-Star break, the next five in a row at home starting Thursday.
“She’s making progress,” White said of Clark. “Top of mind is just long term. Making sure we don’t have any setbacks. Making progress and feeling good are two different things. And we want to make sure that she feels good, that she’s confident. That’s the priority right now.”
