INDIANAPOLIS — There has been a lot of noise around the Fever this week. Virtually none of it has had to do with the product on the court.
In a social media-driven world, the Fever will live under a microscope so long as Caitlin Clark applies her trade in Indianapolis. This week provided the latest stress test for the organization, with lots of voices chiming in after a blowout loss to the Fire, which featured a spat between Clark and head coach Stephanie White during a timeout that went viral.
A week of reflection and downplaying the situation led up to a showdown with one of the league’s top teams in the Dream on Thursday. What followed was a remarkably uneventful, yet much-needed, victory. Indiana controlled the game throughout, save for a stretch early in the second half, and secured a comfortable win to kick off Commissioner’s Cup play.
The situation was a test of the team’s culture, with the response coming on the court.
“It’s been a lot,” Kelsey Mitchell admitted about the noise around the team postgame. “I think it speaks to culture. I think over the last couple of days, from our last day in Portland, from the time we hopped on a plane as a group, our energy shifted as a group. I think that our culture constantly made changes and I think when we have hard conversations as a group, you pour into one another, you get days like this because you’ve actually poured in.
“We did the work the right way. Shout out to our team for not really giving in to what the social media world had to say about us…For us, it was about using this week for the right stuff. Culture is how teams win. I think talent gets us there, but I think team camaraderie and just being honest about where we are as a group keeps us there.”
Mitchell was pivotal not only in building the team’s culture, but also in Thursday’s win. Indiana went into the locker room up 38-29 after controlling the first half, but then surrendered a 14-4 run to open the second half that saw them trail 43-42.
In response, Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and Mitchell all scored in a 44-second span to put Indiana back ahead for good. That was also the start of a heater for Mitchell that saw her score 11 straight points for the Fever, capped off with a pull-up three in transition to extend Indiana’s lead to double digits.
Mitchell finished the game with 25 points on 11-15 shooting overall. It was her fifth 20-point game in the first nine contests. She’s averaging a career-best 21.1 points per game and doing it on her best-ever efficiency from the field (48.6%) as well.
“I just think letting the game flow,” Mitchell said of the key to her hot start offensively this year. “For one, you got to love it and you got to appreciate what the game brings. I think I just try to keep myself in that focus…but I do think that we, as a team, are constantly growing. So I’m only as good as the people around me. We’re in a position where everybody can eat on our team, and I think that I just want to be ready when my number’s called.”
The performance came after Mitchell set the tone for the team during practice as well. After the blowout loss to Portland last Saturday, Indiana held a team meeting on Monday to air things out. The team responded in practice, then did so when it actually mattered, too.
“I thought everybody did a really good job of, No. 1, setting the tone – cause Kelsey’s pace all week has been great – and, No. 2, holding each other accountable to that,“ White said. ”When you do it that way consistently, I mean, we had two good days of practice doing it that way, it carries over.
“When you pour in energy – if you’re struggling, if you’re not making shots, if you’re not in rotation, instead of whining about it and complaining about it, when you pour that energy into the team, and when you pour that energy into lifting one another up, somebody sees you struggling and gives you a pat on the back. I mean, all that matters. All that matters and we’ve got to continue to grow in that area.”
The noise is always going to exist in some form or fashion around the Fever. The best they can do is quiet things down with a performance like Thursday’s. Even still, it feels like one bad game or viral video could throw it all into question again.
But what the Fever did prove on Thursday is that, when those moments come, they have the culture and the camaraderie to weather the storm and still come out the other side.
