Caitlin Clark shoots herself out of slump, but Fever defense has her attention after loss

Washington ultimately held on, with Citron and rookie Cotie McMahon, who made her WNBA debut Friday, each scoring 5 points in overtime. But from Clark’s perspective, the game wasn’t necessarily lost in the extra frame. It was decided much earlier, when the Fever’s defensive effort wasn’t up to par, and the Mystics feasted, particularly around the basket. Washington outscored Indiana 58-28 in the paint and, as a result, shot a blistering 56 percent from the field.

Perhaps even more concerning than the Fever’s poor defensive showing against the Mystics is that it wasn’t an outlier but an early-season theme. The Fever became the eighth WNBA team in one season to suffer multiple losses when they’ve scored 100-plus points. Indiana has played only three games.

“Shots did start falling,” Clark said of Indiana’s fourth-quarter and overtime surge. “And I think we’ve been letting that dictate how well we play defense too much, which is disappointing for us as a group. We gotta be able to defend all of the time. So, I think that’s our biggest area of growth. Like, yeah, everyone wants to guard when they’re making shots. … (But) when things aren’t going well, we still gotta be able to defend.”

Fever coach Stephanie White shared the same assessment. At one point, after Citron cut backdoor for an easy layup off an inbound pass late in the third quarter, White called a timeout as her frustration boiled over.

“We put a lot of pressure on our offense to be perfect when we don’t consistently defend,” White said. “… We’re taking chances (on steals), we’re fouling shooters who are about to shoot tough shots, we’ve got breakdowns in coverages. We gotta find combinations of players and rotations that’s net efficiency can be good. We can’t wait to play defense in situations where we feel good.”

White, however, commended players’ resilience, which was spearheaded by fiery leader Clark. The two-time All-Star proved yet again why her spotlight is different than everyone else’s. When her 3-point shot is falling, she’s capable of making the near-impossible look routine, and her herculean effort was almost enough Friday.

Almost.

Indiana trailed by eight points with 50.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter before Kelsey Mitchell’s 3-pointer, Myisha Hines-Allen’s layup and Clark’s seventh 3-pointer pulled the game even. It was an enthralling but heartbreaking finish for Indiana, the type that can build character or break it if the Fever don’t take a hard look in the mirror.

“It just comes down to defense and a will to defend and getting stops,” Clark said. “That’s what’s gonna allow us to play in transition and that’s what you saw in the fourth quarter when we got stops. That was exciting basketball. That’s how we want to play all of the time, but it all comes back to us playing defense.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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