INDIANAPOLIS — Stephanie White admitted sleep came a little bit easier on Sunday night.
After a long, arduous season filled with injuries, hardship contracts and long nights of adjusting game plans, the Indiana Fever clinched a playoff spot with a win over the Mystics on Sunday afternoon.
That night? It was a much more restful slumber.
“I think I slept a little bit better,” White said. “Everything that this group has been through and the ways in which we’ve been challenged and the number of setbacks that we’ve had and the number of times that we’ve had to get back up, I think it’s a testament to this group and their resilience, which we talked about all year long.
“But to position ourselves to be in the hunt and then to finally get in, it certainly is a little bit of a relief and you take that moment to enjoy it and then it’s about focusing on now what we have to do to make a run in the playoffs.”
The Fever rode the high of clinching a postseason berth on the weekend into their regular season finale on Tuesday. Matched up against a Lynx side without Napheesa Collier (rest) and Dijonai Carrington (shoulder), Indiana jumped ahead early, withstood an early second-half rally and never looked back, winning 83-72.
The victory could play a role in Indiana potentially moving up to the No. 6 seed pending other results across the league this week. But what the final stretch of the season is guaranteed to do is give Indiana momentum as the postseason awaits.
Heading into last weekend, the Fever viewed their final three games as must-wins in order to clinch a playoff berth. A blowout win against the Sky on Friday preceded Sunday’s victory in Baltimore. Paired with losses elsewhere in the league, that was enough for Indiana to earn their spot in the postseason.
Tuesday’s victory, then, served as a bit of an exclamation point on the end of the season as well as a further morale boost.
“I think it gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we can meet the moment at times,” White said of the win streak. “I think that when we get a chance to sort of reflect back, it’s how do we meet the moment in every game as opposed to the ones where your backs [are] against the wall. But every game is a back-against-the-wall game now and being able to put some consistency together, being able to start to see a flow with our new players and our core group, I’ve been pleased with what we’ve been able to do over these last three games.”
The Fever have become experts at integrating players on the fly this season. First, it was Aari McDonald, who joined early in the year and established herself as a breakout star for the Fever.
When she went down, Odyssey Sims stepped in midseason and did much of the same, earning a spot in the starting lineup. The likes of Aerial Powers, Shey Peddy and Chloe Bibby — before suffering her own injury — all stepped in this season as hardship signings and performed well enough to maintain spots in the rotation as well as earn multiple contracts with the Fever.
The 18 players Indiana used this season are the sixth-most in league history. The absences have been felt, none larger than Caitlin Clark’s, and the turnover has been immense.
All of those tests have the Fever uniquely prepared for the postseason. Having handled so many things thrown their way and being forced to adapt quickly, Indiana is now ready for the highest stakes games and whatever is in store.
“When you look at this team, even before I got here, everything that they’ve been through all season, it’s preparing us for the new season,” Sims said. “New season starts on Sunday. Everybody’s 0-0. Anything can happen. We’re not looking at regular season, what we did, what our record was. We have a new record…We have to change [our mindset] completely and it’s do or die.
“Playoffs, every team steps up a little bit more and I’m excited to be with this team. I think that we have another level that, like coach said, we reach it sometimes where you see we’re really, really good and we have our moments where it’s kind of up and down, but man we get it together and I mean just staying where we’re really, really good and we keep it there at all times, like nobody will be able to beat us.”
