The Indiana Fever’s first playoff game since 2016 didn’t exactly go as planned.
Caitlin Clark and the rest of her team struggled Sunday with their shooting and were routed by a veteran Connecticut Sun squad in Game 1 of their best-of-three first-round series.
Visiting Indiana knows the task at hand in Wednesday’s Game 2 won’t be easy, and recognizes the immense advantage Connecticut has in postseason experience.
From Yahoo Sports’ Cassandra Negley:
Four of the five Fever starters have fewer than three years of any WNBA experience. They all made deep March Madness runs in college, but came into the first-round series with zero combined games of WNBA playoff experience. That includes seven-year veteran guard Kelsey Mitchell.
Caitlin Clark, who is coming off back-to-back Final Fours, said Tuesday the intensity, pressure and win-or-go-home situation are similar to college, but still different as a rookie at the pro level.
“It’s a learning process for me, too,” Clark said. “Obviously, this is my first playoff. It’s a lot of us on this team’s first playoff. We’re all kind of going through it at the same point and learning. You don’t always know what to expect, because a lot of us have never been here.”
The Fever have a chance Wednesday night to survive and extend Clark’s magical rookie season. But they will have to shoot better, impose their will in transition and meet the Sun’s intensity.
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