Dream, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Chris and Keisha discuss the Indiana Fever basketball games versus the Atlanta Dream and New York Liberty, Caitlin’s injury and the refs among other things.

Intro/outro music: White Lie by Stream Beats

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Friends, Fever fans, welcome back to another episode of Fever
Replay. We got your Fever news, we got
your Fever breakdown of the games, and it was quite a week.
But before I forget, this week'sepisode is brought to you once
again by the love of the game. Do you like doing things but

(00:36):
nobody seems to care? Do it for the love of the game.
I'm Chris Ord and once again joined by the fantastic Keisha
Gallagher. Say hi, Keisha.
Howdy. Hello, how are you today?
I'm doing well. It has been a fantastic week of

(00:58):
basketball. How are you?
Yeah, jam packed week of basketball.
Not just for us, for everybody. Also the Pacers are in the mix.
It's an exciting time to be a fan here in Indy.
I love it. We're having a good time.
We also just had the Indy 500. Do you watch racing?
I do not. Yeah, I don't really either, but

(01:21):
I moved here. I'm trying real hard and I got
to say I did enjoy it. We're not going to talk about
it, but I did enjoy myself watching.
I took a nap during it, which was nice also, you know, so you
got a little bit of sports, a little bit of napping.
It's kind of like watching baseball, you know?
But anyway, I digress. We had a big week here,

(01:43):
continuing our journey into thisnew season, and we're going to
get into it. But before we get too deep into
it, if you haven't heard yet, sit down.
Are you sitting? You sitting Keisha.
I'm actually laying, which is almost better than sitting
because this is news. Well that is that is a lot of
info to share with our audience.But good.

(02:04):
Good to know. Keisha lays down while she
podcasts. Caitlin Clark is injured.
They say it is a quad strain andat minimum two weeks out.
Not fun. They didn't give us a lot more
info. That news came out today.
Today we're recording on Monday,May 26th.
So two weeks without Caitlin Clark, they said and they'll

(02:27):
reevaluate. Not cool.
How are we going to do this, Keisha?
Well, I think this presents a great opportunity for the rest
of the team to show what they'remade of and to step up because
this game of basketball is sometimes there are injuries,
sometimes there are, sometimes you get into foul trouble and
you're not always gonna have thelineup and the the players that

(02:50):
you're hoping to be available. But these first few games, I
think we've seen a lot of peoplestep up in leadership in certain
roles. So I think if there was gonna be
an injury like this for the Fever, this may be the ideal
time because it's the start of the season.
They're they're on kind of a heater when it comes to close

(03:11):
games. And again, not a very weak
bench, not a lot of weaknesses. No, very strong.
I agree. So like there's two ways I look
at this and I see them both veryclearly at the same time. 1 is,
you're right, like I've seen many times in basketball,
there's only 5 people on the court, you know, and there's not

(03:34):
that many minutes to go around, truth be told.
And when one of your leaders goes down early in a season
where you have plenty of time tocatch up, it can give a lot of
people a lot of reps that they wouldn't normally have, which
can pay dividends later. So like, first thing, it's like,
gosh, if that's going to happen,now's a good time.

(03:54):
That is the first thing I've felt.
But then the second thing I feltwas, boy, it would be nice we
got all these new players to be able to like, install our
offense, have our linchpin, this, this very center of our
team, the distributor, the leader in there.

(04:14):
And to be able to make sure everyone understands their role
around them. Like, it almost makes me nervous
for us to grow too much without her and then have to fit her
back in. I don't like that.
I don't like. That it's a lot of growing
pains, that is for sure. But again, with this new lineup,
you are bringing a lot of seniority and experience to the

(04:37):
table. I mean, Kelsey Mitchell, you
know, no slum. She's going to bring it.
She's going to bring it at all. No.
And I feel like she over the last three games has shown that
she's not afraid to attack and she knows when she knows when to
turn it on. So I think you're going to see a
Lexi Hole, a Sophie Cunningham really show what their what

(04:58):
their grid is and what they're made of when it comes to those
guard rolls. Agreed.
And we talk about the bench being strong.
You know, we have a lot of ball handlers.
We have Caitlin, who's going to be out.
We have Sidney Coulson, Sophie Cunningham, Lexi Holm, Kelsey
Mitchell, all of whom are very comfortable handling the ball.
We're actually very fortunate tohave so much depth on in the

(05:21):
end. But yeah, just, it just sucks.
It just sucks. So before we get too into the
games, there's one other thing Iwanted to touch on.
So basically coach Stephanie White brought up in the post
game for the Liberty game, she brought up very pointedly that

(05:44):
she hasn't liked the ref's calls.
She said that she sees a clear bias against them.
In fact, she said that there's afree throw discrepancy of 31
first from the Fever versus the other teams in the first three
games, which is significant. There's a couple things I like
about her bringing this up. 1 I don't feel like the WNBA

(06:09):
roughing is up to the par of other professional leagues, and
I don't like the roughing of other professional leagues, and
I have found WNBA roughing to beby far the worst of any
legitimate professional sports. So calling them out, I have no
problem with it. The other thing I like is I feel

(06:29):
like having watched the game, seeing the players barking a lot
at the refs, I have a very strong feeling that Stephanie
went into the locker room, said,yeah, I get it, it's bullshit.
Let me handle it, guys. Like, I promise you, I'm going
to do what I can. You know, you guys focus on

(06:50):
what's going on on the court, you know, and then she's like to
show you, I'm going to walk out there and talk about it right
now, which like, you've seen things like this in the past.
If the people are talking on thecourt, that's one thing.
But if the coach comes out and says it in a press conference,
that's another thing, you know, that is her putting herself out
there. She could get fined for
something like that. That's really the coach like

(07:12):
putting themselves out and saying I don't like what I'm
seeing, I want it to change. And I like that kind of
leadership a lot. I agree.
I think that she is stepping up for her team.
She is doing what a coach shoulddo in these instances, and I
think it's important for her to use those opportunities to bring
poor officiating to the media because it's such a high level

(07:34):
of basketball, because there aremore eyes on women's basketball
than ever before. And if we want to keep drawing
in viewers, if we want people towatch these games, there has to
be good officiating. There has to be.
So many of my notes in the last three games are just the refs
suck in all caps because I'm pissed.
I hate. I hate when the referees
negatively impact a game becausethey're taking an insane amount

(07:56):
of time to review calls, or they're making they're blowing
calls or they're calling fouls out of position.
The amount of times I have yelled you are not in position
to make that call at a television is unhealthy.
I'm worried about myself. I shouldn't be screaming like
this. It's it's not right.
And I think that I'm I love whena coach steps up for her players

(08:16):
and is just calling spades, spades.
So I I tip my hat to Coach Whiteon that one.
I think that was professional. I think it was mature.
She probably will get fined, butsometimes you got to be saying
things. Absolutely.
OK, so let's jump into the firstgame of last week, which was on
Tuesday against the Atlanta Dream, who was somebody we saw

(08:39):
in preseason. You know, this game I think
really highlights what that there is a big difference
between a preseason game and an in season game, which we knew.
I don't think any of us were like, oh, these guys are chumps.
But at the same time, stark difference between the two
games. Very good game though, I felt.

(08:59):
What were your thoughts? Why do you think we ended up
losing that game 91 to 90, closegame right to the end.
I mean, this, this speaks to allof basketball this past week,
but free throws were a huge problem.
They were a huge, huge problem. Also in this game, something
that you you don't really want to do when you have a a Britney

(09:23):
Greiner or a Brianna Jones is they gave up twelve offensive
rebounds to some of the talentedtall people down low who love a
put back opportunity. So I thought that those were two
pretty big weaknesses and then the turnovers weren't
drastically bad, but you can't give these opportunities away

(09:48):
like that, especially to a team that were so close to when it
comes to like just competitive level competition across the
board. Guard for guard post for post.
I didn't see a point or a playermatchup where I always thought
they're out, they're out talenting us right now or
they're out playing us. It really was just shot for

(10:11):
shot, an aggressive, fast-paced game.
But those free throws were. I hated the free throws, free
throws overall. Yeah, it's always hard as a fan
when you're watching your team just break free throws.
You know, My wife walked in during one of them and was like,

(10:34):
why do they keep missing those? And I was like, I do not know.
Well, the I mean. It's because, because that's the
one thing like, you know, I got a basketball court on my
driveway and you know, the only line that I've painted onto the
ground is the free throw line. And guess what?
I go out there, shoot a couple of free throws.

(10:55):
You know, it's, it's not too hard.
And I, I, I got to tell you, I had a lot of Keisha.
It's a very predictable shot. I get it's harder.
I get there's lots of pressure, but they are paid.
I mean, arguably not that much. You know, I really shouldn't
bring that up, but they are paidat least enough to practice free
throws. Also, your wife is not someone
whoever misses free throws. I remember that mechanical shot

(11:17):
like like it was yesterday. Yeah, no, When she critiques
them, it comes from a place of knowledge.
You for sure. Should miss those.
Shouldn't miss them? No and I don't.
Even know what this I don't knowwhat that means.
Like I have yet to, as a basketball fan, know what it
means when your team has an off night on free throws.
I have. No, I really don't know 'cause
it wasn't just, I mean, I know that you're just watching the

(11:39):
Fever, but it wasn't just the Fever.
This was like a league issue this week.
People were missing free throws who never miss free throws.
It was wildly bad, but just to the Fever.
They didn't screw the hoop in all the way, so this the hoops
were out a bit. Definitely that yeah, could.
Have been that hoops screws? I'll look into it.

(12:01):
Hoops, screws. Screws.
Yeah. When it's not screwed, the team
gets screwed. Oh, you like that one?
I didn't. It was a good.
The other my other critique on this game though, was there
there were periods of time whereI felt like there were not the
ball movement was bad, there wastoo much ribbling to nowhere,

(12:23):
and there was not enough ball movement specifically in that
Tuesday game against the Dream. And I don't feel like that's
common for the Fever. I feel like ball movement had
been pretty good up until that game, but I don't know.
If the hoop isn't screwed, you are.
There you go. That's way better you.
Know I found it that's way. Better hold on to that one.

(12:48):
All right, so yeah, what I saw was us getting beat consistently
in the paint. Now, when you have players like
Greiner and Jones, you know, youexpect to do pretty darn well in
the paint. But it's not like we're a bunch
of pushovers. We have a lot of length, we have

(13:10):
a lot of strength and we I don'tfeel like we were ready to
handle that kind of two headed monster that they had out there.
And it felt like that it felt like the team was like, oops, we
didn't address this. That's kind of like what it felt
like to me. Halfway through the game, we
were like, Oh, no. And we didn't, you know, we, we

(13:31):
were getting fairly blown out and we really turned the game
around, which like to our credit, especially at the start
of the half or at the end of thehalf.
And then the start of the half, we really kind of shored things
up. We let it go again.
And then we brought it back at the end.
And I felt like that's what it was.
It's kind of like we got punchedin the mouth real hard in the

(13:53):
beginning and we were like, oh shoot, we need to come up with a
new strategy for how we're handling this pressure in the
paint. Speaking of pressure, there was
a lot of fronting and pressure on Clark and I think that that
was a big factor for that loss. And I mean, the fever responded
well. A lot of other people stepped
up, but I think that that threw a wrench in a lot of plans for

(14:17):
offense and I saw that spill into Thursday.
One of my big notes was she's been fronted aggressively
getting mugged by Ryan. And truth be told, like last
year, the first half of the season, that was our big
problem. Like, you know, I don't, you
know, I'm going to keep talking about the first half of the

(14:38):
season last year like it was bad.
Now, we had a decent first half of the season, but we weren't
the same team we were in the second-half.
And what they were doing was exactly that.
And we had trouble as a team learning that.
The second that happens, we needthat release valve.
We need someone to step up. And I think that this turnover

(14:58):
in our roster has hurt that kindof instinctual like, oh, I see
they're they're sending 2 up or they're pressuring her.
Like as soon as she crosses the half, we need to get that
release valve up so she can liketoss it off to somebody and then
do the dribble hand off and get it back.
We started seeing that begin to click.
You know, that's something clearly Boston already knew.

(15:21):
You know, like all of our two man game between am I allowed to
say 2 man game? That's what it's called.
I heard some of the the reporters say two woman game or
two person game and that was. Like it's.
It's not. You call it man.
Defense still, we're calling it too man.

(15:42):
Let's not get too, let's not gettoo far gone in our terminology.
It's called too, man. Thank you.
So the two man game between Caitlin and Aaliyah was still
working. It still continues to be our
fastball. But if I feel like the rest of
the team needs to catch up a little bit on, oh, you know,

(16:07):
they're going to be pressuring Caitlin all day long and we need
to figure out how to instantly do it.
Not like how are we going to do this, but like expect it to come
know exactly what to do when it happens and like be able to to
run our offense off of that being the beginning of our
possession. 100% I think also wecould be benefiting a lot from
off off ball screens. Just getting folks open the the

(16:30):
back cuts and the back door passing has been incredible.
But there we gotta open up. We should not be starting our
offense with Caitlin getting mugged at the half court.
That's not a great start. That's putting a lot of pressure
on her to move the ball forward.That's bringing all of your
offense closer to half court, makes it harder for you to
attack and use your bags, and I don't like that.

(16:52):
I don't like it either. I don't like it either.
Yeah. So when it comes to the second
game, the thing that's really nice for people like you and me
is that this was like an instantrebuttal from both teams,
really. Because you see, OK, there were
some things highlighted for the Fever that they need to work on,

(17:15):
and they came back. Turns out they did their
homework, they worked on it. You know, this is exactly what I
was hoping when we got somebody like Stephanie White.
This is exactly what we didn't have in the playoffs last year.
We just kind of didn't adjust, right, you know?
But we saw huge adjustments. On top of the adjustments, we

(17:37):
also got Sophie Cunningham back,which cannot be overstated, was
a huge factor. She fits in this roster.
She is somebody we need. She's aggressive, she's works
real hard, she's one of those hustle players that we
absolutely need but has the skill to back up the hustle and
it's fantastic and it was a hugebreath of fresh air having her

(18:00):
in the second game. Yeah, she brings a level of
aggressiveness offensively and defensively that I don't think
any other guards possess. Not to say that they don't have
that skill set, but she comes ready to go.
Yeah. And then the other thing I saw,
the biggest take away for me from the game was the way that

(18:23):
we played, it was more Griner than Jones.
So they've got 2 very strong, very impressive ladies on their
team, but more the Griner. Like if you look at the minute,
it felt like we instead of throwing Boston up against
Griner, we like did the opposite.

(18:43):
It was like the second Griner was out, Boston was standing
right there at the scores table,like I'm going in and whatever
Greiner was in, we decided to gosmall and we're like, yeah,
they're stronger than us, they're taller than us.
But we have very skilled playersthat are very fast and we seem
to focus on that foot speed aspect instead of focusing so

(19:04):
much on just trying to fight them.
Strength on strength, which I felt like was super.
Effective and I I mean to the fever's benefit they got Greiner
in trouble with her moving screens.
Anticipating those screens was ahuge factor because it her being
on the bench destroys the high and low benefit of having the
the twin towers basically running the the front court like

(19:27):
that. But I think that there was a big
answer to the question, what canthe Fever do when they are
seeing teams this close together?
And I think to your point about having maybe a more seasoned
coach, a coach who has that kindof experiences, the the those

(19:48):
answers were immediate and the changes that I saw the impact
that a a game of watching film that that was really impressive.
I thought that was a great turn around for them.
This game was. Definitely heated, Howard and
Clark getting a little chippy atpoints, but I was just good

(20:08):
basketball and I like it. First off, I just want to say
that Ryan Howard, incredible. Yeah.
She's one of those good basketball players, and I did
like that chippiness. I loved it when she got in.
Caitlin's one of my I love Caitlin Clark, I think that's
clear. We've been over this many times,
but when she is getting trash talked, the memeable faces that

(20:33):
she makes are fantastic. She doesn't even need to say
words, her face will just portray this like.
Very expressive. What?
What are you talking about? I think, I think what she said
at that moment was I'm not. Afraid of you?
But it wasn't like I'm not afraid of you.
It was her face was like what are you talking about?

(20:55):
I am not afraid, which is like just funny.
Just just confusion over like what's happening here.
I'm not scared of you. So what you're you're up in my
face. Yeah, that was, I mean, but I I
did, I did love that competitiveness.
A question I have about this game is what is going on with
Bonner's limited minutes? That is, is that a health

(21:19):
concern? Is there something that I miss?
Because I just, I mean, if I have Duana Boner, I'm playing
Duana Boner. I just feel like she's not
getting the same minute she had in the preseason.
Didn't know if there was something I missed in the byline
somewhere. I haven't seen anything about
her limited minutes besides the minutes that she's played.

(21:41):
Like besides what we can watch. One thing I'll point out about
this one, plus and minus is not the end all be all.
We'll just, I don't think we've talked a lot about plus and
minus here, but plus and minus is a great tool for kind of
looking at lineups and differentthings.
What plus and minus does really well is tell you how good your

(22:04):
role players are. It is meant for role players.
It's not a great starter thing because like, if you're in
almost the whole game, then yourplus and minus most likely is
going to be whatever. You know, if you won the game by
9, you'll be +9. If you lost it, you'll be -9 you
know, that's how it goes. Dejuana Bonner did not play the
whole game. She was -12 was 0 points.

(22:29):
It's I don't know what's going on.
She was simply not very effective out there.
Maybe it's because she's tall and long, but not faster
necessarily and not stronger most certainly than both Greiner
and Jones. That was like, maybe my feeling

(22:50):
from it. I'm not sure if she's having
trouble fitting into the team's dynamic.
That was, that's been kind of myfeeling.
It feels like she's a little lost in the shuffle, Not
necessarily her mentally, but her skill set appears to be lost
in the shuffle. Like, we know what to do for
sure 100% with Natasha Howard. It seems like when we're having

(23:14):
trouble scoring, Natasha says give me the ball, I'll muscle
some in there. And it's absolutely what we need
whenever our offense sputters a little.
So far this season, Natasha Howard's really found a way to
do that. I don't know that we've found a
way to make Bonner shine yet. And I'm not saying anything
against the lady, but we're she's having trouble getting

(23:37):
points on the board, right? Now, no, I, I agree.
I was, I was concerned and I think, well, one thing I wanted,
I wanted to note though, about Natasha Howard.
When it comes to like these veteran players, Natasha Howard
has found the sauce. 26 points in this game, 12 for 17.
I was impressed. She was not letting up at all.

(24:01):
And it was it was exciting to see.
There are just so many. I don't know if it's the Caitlin
Clark effect or if there's something that the Fever are
running on these on ball screens, but their pick and
rolls are some of the best in the league right now.
I don't know what it is. I know that Boston and Clark
have a special relationship and they seem to find each other

(24:21):
really well. But I found that same that same
juice kind of happening with Howard.
And I'd love that, this game. No, I feel like what it is is
that the Fever have a on averageextremely high IQ for their
starting five. And I think that their focus of

(24:41):
their offense is a match up hunting offense.
And if you're going to match up hunt, you're going to have to do
pick and rolls, you're going to have to do ball screens, you're
going to do double screens, you're going to do all kinds of
screens. And we're seeing it.
We're seeing pick and pops, We're seeing the short roll,
we're seeing the long roll, we're seeing flare screens.
It's fantastic. And I feel like to me, that's

(25:02):
what I'm seeing, like when we get the most success is we're
seeing them picking who they want in these one on ones, who
they want in the role, you know,and really just continuing to
hammer that again and again and again.
And I feel like that's what we're seeing is like their main

(25:23):
focus is moving the ball around.Like I heard Stephanie talk
about, oh, Caitlin's been kind of having trouble.
We've been putting her in bad situations where she's got to
dribble at least five times. And it's like, whoa, you know,
like you don't hear people say that about their point guard,
Like your point guard dribbles alot.

(25:44):
But for her to write off the bat, say, yeah, we're not
putting her in great spots. She's got dribble five times.
It's like, oh, OK, these people really want to be handing off
the ball. They really want to be dishing
it around like it's a main focusof the offense.
So yeah, I agree. It's it's exciting to watch.
But I I mean, that was one of mythat was my take, my take away

(26:05):
to improve from the the way theyplayed against the dream in the
first game versus the second game.
It was it was the ball movement.There was too much dribbling.
And I love that she's identifiedthat that that is not the way
that they're going to be effective on offense.
They need to move the ball so their their point guard can get
away with some crossovers and attacking the basket for those
layups that she's so good at. The same for Mitchell.

(26:27):
Like dribbling is great when you're going somewhere, but when
you're just dribbling in a corner waiting for someone to
come rescue you because you're being, you know, double teamed.
Again, not ideal and not a greatway for her to express herself
in those frustrating moments. It felt like there was some.
Subtext there is OK, I no. Did you want to wait?

(26:50):
Well. I, I don't know, I'm going to
say this and, and this is just alittle, a little bit of back
story about me. I don't know if we've mentioned
this before. I played basketball in high
school and I played in junior college.
Every coach I've ever had has been very strict, very specific
about decorum on the court and what is acceptable and what is

(27:12):
not acceptable. I have a hard time watching
players have temper tantrums or overreact to bad calls because
in my mind, the best revenge on a bad call is to get the ball
back or to make up for it. What I don't like, and this is
not just a Caitlin Clark thing, it just happens to be a recent

(27:33):
Clayton Caitlin Clark thing. I don't want you to throw your
hands up and look at the ref when you just gave up a fast
break. I don't like it.
I don't like with that models toyounger girls.
I don't like that with that models to girls in college.
I don't like what it models to the fans.
Because you're right, it may have been a blown call, but the
call was made. So what are you going to do

(27:54):
about it? And that's my take on that all.
Right. Well, First off, I mostly agree
with you because in my perfect world, where I can put all the
traits into an athlete that I'm a fan of into like, you know,
pull the levers, push the buttons, create the perfect one.

(28:17):
No, I don't want that. You know, I'd be like, get that
out of here. I don't want any of that.
Like I want someone who's focused on what's going on and
focused on the play on basketball making the best move.
Yeah, that's what I want too. I agree with you 100%.
That's not the world we live in.And Speaking of that world.

(28:40):
Hey, no, it's my turn, Keisha. No, but there was a lot of that
and that and that in the Fever versus Liberty game.
There was a lot of that on both sides.
And it was. Oh boy.
For me, the thing that I love most about Caitlin Clark is I've
shared before, I'm a huge Kobe fan, and when I first started

(29:01):
watching her play, her and Kobe have very different games.
They're not even close to the same kind of game.
But what I saw was the same dedication to improvement and
excellence on the court. And I think that part of that,
sometimes when you get that, you're going to also get a
little bit of that other thing, which is when things breakdown

(29:23):
that you didn't control, you arepretty pissed.
And that's kind of what I see out of her.
And I get it. Like, I'd like that to be
cleaned up. I think it's going to get
cleaned up. She's 23 years old.
I'm really not worried about maturity.
She's literally not mature yet. She will get there.
But I accept it as a flaw. If we're going to have a flaw,

(29:46):
that's a family I'm fine with because it actually comes with a
huge pro, which is that this is a girl that is very dedicated to
getting things right. And when something goes wrong
like that, I get why she's pissed.
Like my dad always used to say, why does Kobe not pass?
Now that's not the problem that Caitlin has, but I knew the
answer to why Kobe doesn't pass.It's because when we needed to

(30:08):
score, Kobe knew he was the bestchance to score.
And 1st off, he did pass a lot. He's on.
He's ranked for assists. Anyways, I don't want to talk
about it, but the reason that sometimes he was viewed as a bog
is because he knew with the ballin his hands, if the game came
down to it, he could give himself the the team the best

(30:30):
option to score. Like that was the negative that
comes with his positive. Do you know what I mean?
And that's what I'm saying now, Is that through rose colored
glasses? Yes, it is.
It's Caitlin. Clark, your mamba, your mamba
colored glasses. Yeah, there might be a little
bit something there, but I, I mean, I agree.
I like, I don't not to take awayfrom her passion.
I love that. I mean, getting upset when you

(30:52):
do something wrong. It's very normal, very human.
Alicia Gray does the same thing.She gets pissed, but she also
will run back and get a steal orstop ball.
And I think that is that's the next step in her game.
Of course, there's always fine tuning your actual skill set on
the court, but that emotional maturity, that emotional
intelligence, I think that's that's what I would like to see

(31:13):
for her this season and. I do, I agree it's the next
step. I also see her though do some
presently amazing things while complaining.
Like I'll see her throw up her hands and then they toss her the
ball off the inbounds and then she chucks it up and since she
keeps talking to the rock and that's kind of cool.
I'm not going to lie. If you could do both, then I'm

(31:33):
not even. Complaining.
I'm also coming from, as a Phoenix Mercury fan, Diana
Taurasi probably spent more timeon the court talking to the refs
and complaining about stuff thanany other player in the history
of basketball, men and women. So I hear it and I get it.
But yeah, that was just, that was just my one.
That was my one thing that I really wanted to see.

(31:54):
I I hope to see change over the course of the season for her.
I agree, but but before we move on to the next game, the big one
versus the Liberty, the Champs, the current reigning champs,
let's take a quick break. Hey, Fever fans, this episode is

(32:21):
brought to you by pure joy. Pure joy.
It's good, right? Sometimes it gets mixed a
little. It gets mixed a little with
defeat, sadness, grief. But at the end of the day, pure
joy is what you get when you're watching Fever basketball.

(32:44):
Sometimes. At least not when Caitlin's
injured. So next time you need a little
something something, make sure it's uncut, pure joy.

(33:07):
All right, so let's dive into the last game of the week, which
is versus the Champs, the New York Liberty.
It was a loss. It was a tough loss straight
down to the last second, really,where we honestly look pretty
good. We kind of talked last week

(33:29):
about how this would give us a lot of answers, kind of show us
where we're at. And I agree, like at the end of
it, maybe it was because I watched it on the pool side
because they opened the pools here in the Midwest, something I
didn't know happened when I lived in California, but they
closed the pools for three seasons out of the year.
They just opened them. So sitting by the pool as my

(33:51):
kids were playing and I didn't feel that bad after we lost, I
was like, hey, you know what, welook pretty good out there.
What were your thoughts? Man, this was a tough game
because it came down to a coupleof things that I thought are
that are fixable, but especiallyafter these two games for the
Dream, I thought it'd be something that would be improved
upon so that when we got to the Liberty, we'd be firing on all

(34:14):
cylinders. And that's not just always the
case. I thought, again, free throws,
and that was on both sides. Free throws were bad.
I knew going into this game thinking about what the Liberty
are trying to accomplish this year.
I know that Sandy, that the headcoach for the Liberty has been
thinking about what do it mean to have a repeat championship

(34:36):
while maintaining a focus of getting things done, improving
last year's weaknesses, polishing those experienced
players and bringing in the firecracker that is Natasha
Cloud. So I, she had her hands full and
I think she thought that this game was gonna look a lot

(34:58):
different. It was competitive.
There was a lot of edge, but theLiberty really left the door
wide open for the fever for a lot of this game.
And I, I wish they could have stepped through.
But they the thing about them isthat they're if you give New
York any opportunity to get backinto momentum to reclaim a lead,

(35:23):
that's gonna be a problem. They will take those
opportunities. They're not missing.
I mean, not to not to blow again, steam up their jerseys
here, but you're looking at someof the best talented, talented
starting five, maybe the best. And that is that crazy to say
It's very early, but they have some of the most talented

(35:46):
players on their roster right now.
John Quail Jones, Brianna Stewart, Sabrina and then
they've had the addition again of Natasha Cloud, who's just
phenomenal and they have taller the the transition from
Vanderslut to Natasha Cloud, I think is a big game changer for
you for New York and they already were great last year.

(36:07):
So for this game, who I think itwas just a combination of poor
officiating on both sides and just really bad free throws.
What what was going on with the free throws, guys?
What we saw in the first half wekind of had, we weren't very

(36:28):
focused on offense. So one thing we hadn't brought
up yet is between this game and last game, it took a long time.
I think it was 13 3 pointers until Caitlin Clark hit 1.
So she didn't hit one last game.It was the first time in her
career. And then this game it took her a
while to also hit her three pointers.

(36:50):
That was a problem and I think that our offense was beginning
to sputter. Not that it's all built around
her three pointers because it really isn't.
Usually she jacks one up either early in a mismatch or, you
know, sometimes late as the clock's going down.
Like she kind of uses him as a let off valve because she likes

(37:11):
to dish the ball around. She's not a selfish player at
all. And I think that that did kind
of throw us for a loop, though, as everybody I think was on
board on, hey, Caitlin's got to shoot her way out of this, let's
let this happen. And I think it kind of just made
everybody go like, wait a second, man, what are we doing
out here? And you would see it like the

(37:33):
our focus on offense, sort of drift, like we would do good in
spurts. And then we'd kind of go back to
what are we doing? Like some ISO plays, like what's
going on? Why aren't we passing the ball
around? And it felt like it was either
working or it wasn't. And it would like go back and
forth on that. The other piece I noticed was
like, we just could not stop theLiberty from getting to the

(37:55):
paint. The first half absolutely
couldn't. It was almost embarrassing.
You could say I was like these. They could just, whenever they
wanted, any person from anywhereon the court, just drive into
paint and we couldn't stop them.And that was.
Not cool. Yeah, I mean the first, the
first 3 turnovers were were all Clark.

(38:18):
They're just, I feel like they struggled to find rhythm in the
first half. I mean, they got there and it
wasn't like, again, they were not getting blown out wasn't
crazy, but it was like that, that chemistry missing that I
think that really cost like the game not finding the flow,
having to kind of dig out of a hole of just not being able to

(38:40):
figure out how to respond was a struggle.
Yeah. And I feel like that was the
thing as they slowly did figure it out because they did, they
kind of, they stopped the bleeding about halfway through
the second quarter and started to really dig in against the
lead going into the half. Now they were still ahead at the

(39:01):
half, but they really started toput a lot more fight into it.
I felt like after and kind of started to figure things out.
I mean, like I said, Caitlin wasn't hitting her three-point,
but she had eight assists in thefirst half, so it was like she
was like, OK, I'm going to contribute here somehow.

(39:21):
Like I'm going to make somethinghappen even if that shot isn't
hitting. One thing I also wanted to bring
up, I think it was really clear afterwards, if you watch the
post game, I think Caitlin was sick with something.
She was like sniffing the whole time.
She looked out of it. I was pretty impressed when I
found that out. I thought she was just having a
tough game because she was moving just fine out there.
But at the end when I saw her, Iwas like, oh shoot, I think

(39:45):
she's sick. Which, you know, people play
sick all the time. They're all professionals.
It's probably not that big a deal, but just something to
throw in there. The other thing I noticed is I
felt like Howard was not quite able to keep up foot speed wide
wise in this game. It was the lateral movement for

(40:05):
Howard and I think when we realized that.
That's where things started. Turn around in the second-half.
We're like we need to go somewhere else.
And the place we went to, which was my huge take away from this
game, we have a fastball as thisteam.
It's nice to already know what our fastball is.

(40:27):
It's the Caitlin Aaliyah Boston two man game, high pick and
roll. It's disgusting.
It's so good. They can do so many things off
of it. The other team knows it's coming
and the question is, can they stop it?
And the answer is the Liberty can't stop it if you give them

(40:47):
an entire half. So like, we leaned on it to get
back in the game. We started going to the fastball
and we went again and we went again and again and again.
And we got in the lead. We had a huge lead.
I think we're up 12 points at one point, you know, and I'm
like, we're doing this. But you give the Champs enough
time, you give a fantastic coachon the other end enough time and

(41:10):
they're like, OK, if that's whatthey're going to do, we're going
to figure out a way to stop it. Which is to me, kind of like in
a nutshell, not to put it make it all that simple.
I felt like that's what happened.
But that's also why I didn't feel that bad coming out of it.
I was like, it's nice to know wehave that if we just keep that
in our pocket till we need it. Don't lean on it the whole

(41:32):
second-half. I mean, that's just nice to know
you have it and it's nice to give people film to see that and
have to prepare, and then when we do other stuff, you know,
it'll be even more effective, so.
I think the fever we're lucky tohave Mitchell really show like
true tenacity in this game. I think she really kept kept the

(41:56):
fever in it, especially as more people started getting
frustrated and calls weren't being called and pays were
getting plays were getting blownup from those poor or lack there
of of calls. One thing that I I have this
underlined and highlighted in all caps is whole is a nuisance

(42:16):
on defense and and like I don't know.
I don't know if it's too soon. Most improved players six man of
the year. I don't know.
I feel like there's something Lexi hole is on something.
She's on something and she needs.
She just recognition is due. I'm really, really impressed
with her play. I love seeing her on the court
and I think she the speed and cleverness she brings to an

(42:40):
offense. Gosh, I love that.
I I love seeing the creativity she has on losing her man just
on footwork alone. She is she is a huge asset here.
But unfortunately, yeah, New York just wasn't laying off even
though they struggled dressed asbadly at the free throw with

(43:00):
their insane this like we talkedabout it earlier, but let's just
let's just put this into the conversation.
New York from the free throw line was 23 for 3023 for 3030
free throws shot. Indiana was 9 for 13, 13.

(43:27):
Chris, I said 13 to 30. I'm not saying no that the
officials are bad people. It's a hard job, but what are
you? What?
Do you do I fully? Admit it's a hard job.
No, and that's the thing. So that's what another thing to
bring up. This is what this is a game that
Stephanie White decided to talk about it on.

(43:50):
She said herself, it's not like we're just jacking up threes
because we're not. That is not how the Fever hang
their hat. They shoot threes, they shoot
them well, but we're a team thatpounds the paint.
And like I said, we did it the whole second-half.
In general, if you're pounding the paint, you're going to be
competitive. You should be competitive in the

(44:12):
amount of free throws that you're receiving.
That's just how it works. 52 points in the paint. 52 points
in the paint for Indiana this game, That's a lot.
Correct. If you look at the shot chart,
there's a bunch of XS outside ofthe arc, let's just say, and
there's a lot of green, no? I got it right here.

(44:33):
No 7 for 22 for Indiana, 7 for 25 for New York.
It I mean, it was a bad threes all around, but it, it was, it
was a ghost town. But there, I mean those free
throws, 88 to 86, knowing that you were nine for 13 at the
line. We're shooting free throws for
the next for the next three days.
That's all we're doing. Everyone's shooting 100 free

(44:54):
throws in a row. And if you miss, we're starting
over. That's that's my mentality as a
coach. If we're losing by two points,
it's frustrating. I think this is going to spark a
fire for them to not only show that they can win without
Caitlin, but they feel like theyhave.

(45:15):
They got a little chip on their shoulder now going into the
second week. You know, I think All in all,
I'm very comfortable with where we are.
I kind of like even that we're down because that's the right
place to be. Like I was a little nervous that
we just like steamroll into thisseason, you know, because we
have a lot of talent on our teamand that we wouldn't put in have

(45:39):
to put in that work in the beginning.
But we do and it's fine. There's plenty of there's plenty
of games to play. I'm not worried.
I am worried. Caitlin's up, but it's only two
weeks. She's going to be fine.
They don't even know. OK, We only get in too into it
because there's literally no information out there.
But as of right now, they don't know when she got injured.

(46:00):
They didn't say it was during the game, during practice.
They're just like she was sore. We got an MRI.
Turns out she has a strain. That's all the information out
there. I got to tell you, Keisha, I'm
not comfortable with that. I want.
I think it's kind of just keeping, keeping the cards, you
know, close because everybody's wanting to know when is she, how
are we going to prepare? I think that's a good segue into

(46:21):
these upcoming games is how do we prepare for the Fever if we
don't know what that lineup's going to look like?
Is she back in two weeks? OK, so to not make this too long
of an episode, give us the rundown though.
Give us your Keisha's scouting report on.
Let's see, we have on Wednesday the DC Mystics, and then we got

(46:43):
on Friday, Connecticut. OK, boom.
What do you think's going on there?
So for the Mystics, that is, I mean, they are the wild card of
the season so far because they are, I mean, they're they're
pretty rookie heavy. They have returners in Steph
Dolson, who's incredible. Yep, she mom, Seth, she is a

(47:05):
great post player, has a has a wicked outside shot.
She sets a lot of screens. She's doing a lot of she's doing
a lot of work off the ball that doesn't show up in the stat
line, but she's a huge asset to the mistakes.
Then you have Brittany Sykes, who's had a phenomenal start to
her season. I think if you were watching
Unrivaled, you saw that she is not only is she incredibly

(47:27):
athletic, but she is a playmaker.
Then the two, the two big factors are Sonia Citron and
Kiki Aerofin, who are the two starters who were drafted one
right after the other. And we're talking about one of
the Notre Dame's Big Three guardand the post for USC.

(47:48):
So Kiki's working it. She just had a game against some
pretty aggressive and big post players and she did not back
down even a little bit. I'm excited to see what they
what she looks like against Boston and against Howard.
So those are the those are the ones you got to keep an eye on.
In addition, there's some other sneaky hits.

(48:11):
Melbourne for the Mystics is a really great guard.
She's aggressive, she attacks. But yeah, that's that's a pretty
it's a pretty wild bench. You don't know what's gonna pop
out there. Anybody could show up, anybody
could start. So it's hard to be prepared when
you really don't know what the lineups gonna look like.
Then you have the son who are inthe beginning of a build back

(48:33):
year. They lost their entire entire
starting roster and and their. Coach.
Where did their coach? Oh boy.
Yeah. So this is the first matchup
where you have Marina Mabry seeing her former teammate and
coach and Mabry talk about a chip on her shoulder.
Mabry is ready to hunt heads. They've had some pretty

(48:57):
impressive games where people thought they were going to be at
the bottom of the barrel, but they're they're rocking it hard.
You also have Tina Charles in addition to Mabry.
Tina Charles is 1 of the best post players in the country, the
world maybe. She shoots so hard, far high
behind her head, you can't blockher.
She's a giant. She's smart.
She can shoot all over the court.

(49:19):
And Connecticut is aggressive. They're very aggressive.
And they're not aggressive. Sometimes they're aggressive
from jump ball to the final whistle.
So that's gonna be a very physical game.
So if Indiana's feeling tired, if there's any injuries, that
could be a problem because Connecticut has does not give a
hoot about much except trying toprove a point that this may be a

(49:41):
brand new team. But we got a lot to say.
Yeah, I expect some fire from them in front of their old coach
being like, look what you could have had.
Look at me now. Well, that's exactly what
they're going to be saying. Look at me now, Dad.
Yeah, OK. Well, thank you so much, Keisha.

(50:02):
Always a great time talking to you about specifically Fever
basketball, among other things. But that was a fun week of very
close games and I look forward to what this next week holds.
Anyways, hope you guys all have a good one and we'll see you

(50:22):
next week on Fever Replay.