June 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Chris & Keisha talk Indiana Fever Basketball in the wake of some injuries and break down the DC Mystic and Connecticut Sun games from last week.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Friends, Fever fans, welcome back to another Fever Replay
podcast. You're home for a breakdown of
recent Fever games and what's going on with your favorite
ladies on the court. I'm once again joined by my
lovely and extremely talented Cohost Keisha Gallagher, and this
(00:37):
podcast once again is brought toyou by the love of the game.
If you're gonna do it anyway, doit for the love of the game.
Keisha, how are you today? I'm.
Doing well. How are you, Chris?
I'm doing well. It's very unrelated to the
Fever, but I am in fact doing well.
(01:01):
You know why I'm doing well? The Pacers are at least are
going to the Finals, so that's very exciting.
This is very much not ANBA podcast, but around here it is a
very exciting time and people are very locked in to basketball
in general, which makes me happy.
So why are you doing good though, Keisha?
Well, it is the start of pride, which is always just a fantastic
(01:24):
time. And as we were somewhat
discussing earlier, it is alwaysreally great to start off with a
lot of WNBA. It feels like those worlds are
intertwined, maybe. I think that's fair to say.
Synergy Connection. Agreed.
Yeah, so our our girls aren't doing too good though out there
(01:46):
on the field, out on the field of play.
We'll say the Fever are having some trouble without Caitlin.
I think that's fair to say. And my major take away from
watching them is what I see is ateam that has a brand new coach,
(02:07):
has a very new roster and are trying to find what their roles
are out on the court. And I think that that wasn't
really hidden by having Caitlin present before.
I think that Caitlin is an exceptional distributor of the
basketball, that her court vision and her basketball IQ
(02:32):
kind of accelerated that processof getting this current version
of the team together. And we saw that.
We didn't see like perfect basketball when we had Caitlin,
but we saw good basketball, exciting basketball, basketball
that we're like, oh, I want to watch where this goes.
And then you take her out. And it's not like any of these
ladies are less talented. It's more just like, OK, where
(02:54):
do we fit now? This thing that we were all
plugged into, this like ball distribution machine that we had
isn't there. How do we get things going?
How do I get the ball where I want to get the ball?
How do we do this? Who does it?
We had a lot of questions the last two games and not a ton of
answers. What were your like first
(03:15):
thoughts from these games? I think there was a lot of kind
of similar to what you're sayingis what do we do when XY and Z
are not options? I think there were there were a
lot of growing pains specifically when it comes to
what a roster is presenting you.The first game that they faced
(03:35):
this week against the Mystics, Ijust felt like they didn't
really have any answer or solution to the number of post
players they saw. And I thought that was pretty
evidence and the percentage of points that you saw in the paint
and as well as overall shooting percentage not being super
(03:56):
dramatic. It really was just second
opportunities. The offensive rebounds.
Think it just looked in general like there was a struggle that
that gum, that connectivity and that second hand knowledge of
where players are gonna be. That's really hard to establish
when everyone has to kind of step up into those new roles.
(04:17):
Agreed. Yeah, how we're going to look at
this, Me and Keisha kind of decided looking at it, we're
just going to talk about both games kind of together.
So last week the Fever played first the Mystic, and then after
that they played the Sun. Neither game they won.
(04:39):
It was rough to say the least. Both games had a very similar
sort of feel to them, where the first half was fairly
competitive and the second-half really got away from them and
both games felt bad to watch. So we decided let's just mix
those two together since they have so many similarities.
We're going to talk about them both together, so let's throw it
(05:02):
to you first. Keisha, get us started on what
are we looking at here. Well, I think we could start
with a positive and that was a huge milestone for Dwana Bonner
with I think it was first playerto reach what was it 7500 points
correct, 3000 rebounds and 1000 assists in the history of the
(05:24):
WNBA. So that's pretty which.
Is a huge accomplishment. Right.
That is a really big deal and very exciting for her.
And I think, OK, so just with that being a positive, that is
great. It's great when you're more
senior players still have that sort of impact at this point.
(05:44):
And she scored, she was the highscorer for that Mystics game
with I think 21 points. So it's just, you know, I think
it's I think it's great that that that resources there.
It's finding the right plays andgetting into some sort of
rhythm. I think that's really the
overall struggle that I saw. And it doesn't help again,
(06:05):
having Clark out and then multiple injuries in the next
game, That does not make it any easier.
No, it doesn't. It was fantastic in these two
games to see Bonner do what she does best.
We haven't really seen it all year.
Not a long year, not a lot of games, but we haven't seen it
yet on this current Fever team. But Bonner looked really sharp.
(06:31):
She looked really good there. She just felt like she was
having fun even, and being aggressive and feeling herself
out on the court. Like there are a couple times
she'd do like a head fake or like a little like, oh, I'm
going to pass. But then she goes up for it.
It was really cool and somethingthat we really need.
(06:53):
And what made us competitive, atleast in the first half was she
definitely played a huge role inthat 100% also.
So I saw some other good things.One I found that Coulson was
when she was playing and when wewere featuring her, which I
(07:13):
would say both first halves, I found her to be a creative
playmaker. Like she's definitely not
Caitlin Clark. When we picked her up, that was
something that Stephanie had talked about.
Coach Stephanie White had talkedabout that.
They knew they weren't going to fill Caitlin's role when she's
(07:33):
not on the court, but they wanted somebody that could play
with pace, that was comfortable handing the ball and knew what
she was doing. And we have that in Coulson.
We got to see a lot more minuteswith her.
And I felt like when we were having her run our offense, I
thought to myself, this is good.Like if this wasn't what was
(07:54):
happening the whole time, if this was just happening in
spurts throughout a competitive game, I love this.
So I felt like I got a lot of good answers out of Sidney
Coulson while she was playing. I agree.
I think that there has been justsort of this awkward formation
of these different line UPS. I think you're kind of forced to
(08:18):
keep pulling players off the bench trying to fill in these
gaps, especially when there are these injuries occurring again.
And I think that what Sid bringsin, in speed also compliments
Caitlin and also comple compliments Kelsey Mitchell.
So even though there is a different feel and a different
(08:39):
vibe coming from how Sid plays, we're still working with that
same pace. So I think that she was a great
addition to the style that the Fever really has been leaning
into since the beginning of the season.
Mm Hmm. If you didn't watch the games,
she's currently injured as well as Sophie Cunningham.
(09:01):
Those hurt us a lot. So we have as far as guards, our
starting point guard is out, ourbackup point guard is out.
And then I they were calling herthe emergency backup, which is
Sophie is now out as well. So we don't actually have like a
(09:25):
point guard currently on our roster, which is kind of
frustrating. We have people who can do it.
Lexi can do it, Kelsey can do it.
It's not really what they would prefer to be doing.
It's not really their strength, but they both have the skills to
be able to do it. So one thing, the Fever have the
ability to sign one more player in a in a hardship clause, which
(09:52):
is a sucky place to be so early in the season.
But because we only have 8 active players right now, if
you're under 10 active players, you're able to sign somebody.
So I wouldn't be surprised if wesaw somebody signed even just
for this week. The good news is the last game
was 2 days ago now, so we've heard back.
(10:16):
They both got scans. They both look good.
Coach Stephanie White said that we are day-to-day with both
ladies, so you know, not bad. They both got injured.
It sounds like the lowest level of injury that could have
happened. It's not great and it's the same
(10:36):
ankle that Sophie hurt before. So there are concerns.
There's lots of concerns. Well, and you also still take
into consideration that with thekind of injury that Caitlin has,
the estimated date that she's set to return isn't really that
it's her next evaluation. So if they still determine that
(10:58):
she's not ready you, we could belooking at potentially another
week of being down three playersor at least still not having
your best options for point guard.
So hopefully it is good news andeveryone is in a better position
come game time. But I mean, it is early in the
season. So kind of similar to our last
(11:21):
conversation with early injuries, it's is it better to
have them now or to potentially have them towards the end of the
season when you're running out of games to play?
It's. It sucks either way, but.
It's not great. Yeah, it's not great.
So as far as this we're are we league worst than free throws?
Is that the case? I I wrote down league worst 63
(11:45):
coming into the game. I think that's free throws.
It has not been a strength as oflate and especially well.
It's also, it's something that for the amount of time that I
played, a lot of coaches would refer back to free throws when
we had close games. And it's very frustrating when
you lose by two points and you miss 3 free throws.
(12:08):
So it, it's not to say that those points automatically
guarantee the West, but it is pretty demoralizing when you
know, you miss those free opportunities.
And these were close games. There wasn't, I mean, if we kind
of just look at this at the Sun game, Connecticut was shooting
(12:28):
from the field 51%, almost 52. We were shooting 49, 3 point,
they were shooting 50, we were shooting 41.
So there's a little discrepancy there, but free throw 86 for the
Sun, 85 for the Fever. Had the same amount of rebounds,
assists were very similar, steals were similar, same amount
(12:48):
of blocks. Like there weren't these huge
gaps of wow, they gave it away or they were completely out of
the game. Huge comebacks, but it just
wasn't enough. And that's again, really
challenging when your bench is depleted.
Yeah, that was kind of my feeling and why I feel like both
games kind of went similarly where we were in the game and
(13:10):
then all of a sudden we weren't,we were able to like be in the
game. That's like the level of scoring
and defense we were able to do is like that kind of maintenance
level. If it's a close game, we'll stop
a couple times, we'll be able toscore.
But when the other team hit a streak, we were not really able
to respond to the streak with our own.
(13:33):
That's like what I was seeing. And so once we started getting
in trouble in the games and we're looking for answers like
how are we going to get back in this?
There essentially were no answers.
It was like we don't have a way to get back in this.
We can we can maybe get a few stops.
We can continue to score. They're not going to stop us
(13:54):
from scoring. But we weren't going to be able
to just like completely put the brakes on the other team and
just go on a nice little run to get us back in the game.
That didn't seem like a speed that we were able to like hit as
a team. No, and unfortunate.
I mean, I guess again, the positive being that the Mystics
(14:17):
game they played not their best.You definitely saw improvement
going into the game against Connecticut, but that's another
snapshot of what performance could look like when you're
relying on certain rosters to beavailable.
And maybe this was the wake up call that was needed to say we
(14:38):
need to work on those combinations.
We have to put out Otter op options just so that we have
that experience and it's not so felt very foreign on the court.
I felt like there was a lot of fluidity against their opponents
showing where the opponents seemto know a little bit, know each
other a little bit more. And again, I think it just was.
(14:58):
The combinations were just not that common and it read
uncomfortable. Yeah, that's kind of what I was
saying. Like it.
I feel like what we saw was a new team without the catalyst of
Caitlin Clark. And I mean, catalyst like, not
necessarily like taking away thefact that she is her own engine,
(15:19):
that she has her own points, that she scores, that she's
productive completely on her own, but she has this ability to
be a catalyst for our offense and for our players.
Each one of our starting lineup players and some of our bench
are just absolutely flat out fantastic basketball players who
(15:39):
really have some strengths that need to be reckoned with by the
other team. But what I saw in the last two
games was we weren't able to getthose players consistently to
their strength when we needed to.
And I feel like that was really a sign of like, this team hasn't
bonded and found out how to do that like on its own yet.
(16:03):
It was like speed up, like I said, by Caitlin Clark, which
makes sense. She is absolutely as good as she
is as everything else. She's truly legendary.
I would say at distribution, that's something that we haven't
even begin to see. I think the tip of the iceberg
because last year she was great,but we all know she had a lot of
(16:25):
turnovers too. There's tons of room for
improvement there and I think wesee that.
We saw that here and unlike you were kind of going into, we did
get a lot of answers and we're put in a pretty uncomfortable
place last week that I think is good for a team early in the
season to have to ask yourself these kinds of questions.
(16:48):
How do we get the ball where it needs to be?
How do we feed Aaliyah Boston inthe paint?
That was something we did not have an answer for.
And there was a really interesting thing we tried.
I think with the Mystic we decided to start not with the
Mystic. It was with the that was a
really interesting thing that wetried with the sun was we tried
(17:12):
initiating the offense through Boston above the nail, which was
I was like, ha, look at that. And it worked for a little
while, you know, because Boston knows what she's doing.
She's very talented. Anyone else that you're going to
put up there she's going to be able to beat?
So we were kind of running this reverse version of the two man
(17:34):
game that we normally see with Caitlin and AB, but instead
we're having her run it. But that led to some problems as
well because all of a sudden we were getting like no rebounds
and I was like, what is going on?
And we kept seeing smaller bodies down there and I'm like,
where's AB? And I'm like, oh right, ABS at
the top. We're not seeing her down low,
(17:57):
which hurt us in a big way. I think it was an interesting
like concept that I think workedfor a couple minutes.
And that's the thing, like, so we're seeing people on the floor
that aren't going to be on the floor together for, you know, 30
minutes. We're seeing all these rotations
that are supposed to be on the floor together for like 5.
(18:19):
And I think we got a lot of goodfilm for like 5 minute spurts.
But I think the other team very quickly was like, oh, we know
how to deal with this. It's not too hard to to to
solve. Yeah, that's what I saw.
I don't know what. No, it was, it was a pretty, it
(18:40):
was a pretty frustrating week. But I mean, when it comes to the
mistakes, I think there was justthey did not have solutions for
the depth of post player available.
And their their posts were just getting beat up by Aaliyah
Edwards and Shakira Austin. And it was just hard.
(19:02):
It was a hard, it was a battle. But the the depth there and the
amount of options that they had it, it was just, yeah, I didn't,
I didn't really see a way for there to be success if they
could not figure out a way to stop Kiki and it just was not
happening that night. I mean, that happens.
There are just times when the pieces aren't falling together.
(19:24):
But hopefully going into this next week, there will be lots of
film to review. There will be lots of strategies
going on. Wondering what the depth of the
bench is gonna be like. So I think there's going to be a
lot of creativity and probably some interesting lineups to come
as they try to figure out what this is going to this is going
(19:45):
to look like, especially becausethis upcoming game is going to
be against the Mystics. So what have you, what have we
learned? Are we prepared?
What will that look like and who's going to be available?
I think that is one of the positives coming out of this is
I don't feel like, oh, this justisn't a talented enough group of
(20:06):
players. Or even that they can't play
together. That is not the feeling I got.
I felt like this team, they worked like we know for a fact
that in training camp they were running things with Caitlin in
there. So this is a brand new problem
that they are just starting to figure out how to solve.
(20:26):
And I do feel like between the talent on the floor and between
our coach, we're going to see a lot of answers.
And then at the end of the day, like we kind of talked about,
oh, is this going to be a problem us getting too gelled
without Caitlin? No, I'm realizing watching it,
no, it's not going to be a problem.
It'll be great to have all of these answers in our pocket
(20:49):
delayed in the season when hopefully we have everybody
healthy and we need to go to some sort of weird off speed
pitch sort of lineup. We'll have it and we'll know how
to do it. And they'll be like, oh, that
thing that we did back back in June, yeah, let's do that thing.
It's going to work in this situation.
I do feel really hopeful in thatI think it's really obvious from
(21:13):
this conversation that I am not a general feeling the most
hopeful. It was very frustrating to
watch. But I do see a light at the end
of the tunnel. I do see that there's a lot of
room for growth, which is a goodplace to be when your roster
looks like it is. It's not like we're doing the
(21:34):
absolute best we can do and we're getting beat.
No execution was down the both the last two games.
There were little bobbles, therewere missed layups.
Like it wasn't just that it wasn't all just formational like
team build problems. I think everyone is off their
game and that's frustrating but also very understandable.
(21:58):
They're put in a tough situationright now.
No, there's just there. As a Phoenix Mercury fan, Kai
Copper's been out the entire season.
Elisa Thomas just went out and those are two huge players for
us. So I don't think it's just
unfortunately it's a slow growing issue that just hits
teams at certain times and it's infuriating.
(22:20):
Certain lineups you don't get tosee they're playing against
folks you know that they can dominate against and it just
doesn't happen. So just trying to imagine that
everyone who has been dealing with injury is healing and is
taking the rest that they need. Absolutely.
OK, so before we get into our upcoming games this week, we're
(22:42):
going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Feeling stressed? Take a moment to breathe.
With just two minutes of guided deep breathing, you can reset
your focus and calm your mind. Try now, inhale deeply and
(23:08):
exhale. Wow, Ready for more peace in
your day after daydreaming aboutwhat your favorite women's
basketball team would look like if their stars were healthy?
Me too. Me too.
Deep breathing. It's always there for you.
(23:30):
All right, we're back. This week.
We have the Mystics again, and Ido.
After talking to you, Keisha, I've decided I do feel hopeful
about this Mystics game. I think that that was a winnable
(23:53):
game and even if we just hit some free throws, we might have
been in that one. So you know what?
Maybe we'll do that. And then it looks like on
Saturday, the 7th of June, we'regoing to be playing the sky
again. So we're seeing a lot of similar
faces to begin the year. Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe that'll help us like kind of the consistency on the other
(24:15):
side will help us kind of tweak what we're doing on ours.
But what do you got for us, Keisha?
Well, I think now that we're getting back into the options of
seeing some of these folks again, I do hope that we are
looking at film and studying, getting prepared because
especially team like the Mystics, they just have so many
(24:38):
options. There's just so many different
cards they can pull. They do have the Shakira Austin
available, Stephanie Dolson, Elliott Edwards, Emily Inks,
Lawyer as well as Kiki Earphin. They all play the same position
and they're all so very different and they bring
different threats onto the courtand that's just their big.
Then you have Lucy Olsen, who can get hot behind the three,
(25:00):
Britney Sykes, who's on a heater, who's just scoring and
stealing and blocking and gets up in the air like a freakazoid.
And then son Sonia Citron, who she can drive, she can shoot,
she can facilitate. I feel like the Mystics last
season definitely weren't as strong and people could tend to
overestimate their their bench against theirs.
(25:23):
So that again is going to be a tough game.
But we have to, we have to fix those issues from the previous
round. Yeah, I mean, the first look for
me at the Mystic, I was impressed.
It's a big improvement from lastyear.
Citron looked extremely composedout there.
(25:44):
I was like, this is a brand new,she's brand new to this league.
She didn't seem like she was brand new.
She was making some really big plays and it was very
impressive. They're a good team this year,
so that'll be that'll be a good one for us to continue to
improve on. What about the what about the
(26:05):
Sky? Our second try with the Sky.
With the sky, I think that some of the some of the folks got to
watch out for include and kind of start with Courtney Vander
Sloot because she has the skill to make incredible passes.
She also is really great at attacking the basket.
She finds these really incredible angles on her drives.
(26:28):
So she's going to really dictatewhat the game looks like.
And then he'll even with is healthy.
Angel Reese is healthy, key and Nurse is healthy and Cardoso is
healthy. So a lot of players who were
having some issues in the last few seasons, they're on newer
teams, but they are ready. And another big threat that is
looking better and better would be Ariel Atkins.
(26:48):
She is attacking and she is aggressive.
So this is not gonna be a walk in the park with or without
Caitlin, with or without Sid andSophie.
It's gonna be a competitive weekand hopefully most of those
folks are back that. Just makes me so sad.
(27:10):
OK, friends, so we're going to be with you with all the highs
and the lows of the Fever season.
So you know what, if that's whatyou need, if you just need some
people to be sad with after a tough week of basketball, we got
you here. We try and keep things a little
(27:31):
bit positive. So if you like to be kind of a
griefer and scream, you're not going to get that out of us, but
we're going to be with. You not on air.
Not on air, but trust me, there's plenty of screaming and
frustrations that happen in the text chat.
So yeah, there's always that. Anyway, Fever fans, thank you
(27:54):
for sticking with us with another episode of Fever Replay.
We absolutely love getting to dothis with you guys and we're
excited to see where this seasongoes and where this podcast
goes. So we'll see you next week and
(28:15):
hopefully we got good news for you.
Let's go. Good news.
Friends, Fever fans, welcome back to another Fever Replay
podcast. You're home for a breakdown of
recent Fever games and what's going on with your favorite
ladies on the court. I'm once again joined by my
lovely and extremely talented Cohost Keisha Gallagher, and this
(00:37):
podcast once again is brought toyou by the love of the game.
If you're gonna do it anyway, doit for the love of the game.
Keisha, how are you today? I'm.
Doing well. How are you, Chris?
I'm doing well. It's very unrelated to the
Fever, but I am in fact doing well.
(01:01):
You know why I'm doing well? The Pacers are at least are
going to the Finals, so that's very exciting.
This is very much not ANBA podcast, but around here it is a
very exciting time and people are very locked in to basketball
in general, which makes me happy.
So why are you doing good though, Keisha?
Well, it is the start of pride, which is always just a fantastic
(01:24):
time. And as we were somewhat
discussing earlier, it is alwaysreally great to start off with a
lot of WNBA. It feels like those worlds are
intertwined, maybe. I think that's fair to say.
Synergy Connection. Agreed.
Yeah, so our our girls aren't doing too good though out there
(01:46):
on the field, out on the field of play.
We'll say the Fever are having some trouble without Caitlin.
I think that's fair to say. And my major take away from
watching them is what I see is ateam that has a brand new coach,
(02:07):
has a very new roster and are trying to find what their roles
are out on the court. And I think that that wasn't
really hidden by having Caitlin present before.
I think that Caitlin is an exceptional distributor of the
basketball, that her court vision and her basketball IQ
(02:32):
kind of accelerated that processof getting this current version
of the team together. And we saw that.
We didn't see like perfect basketball when we had Caitlin,
but we saw good basketball, exciting basketball, basketball
that we're like, oh, I want to watch where this goes.
And then you take her out. And it's not like any of these
ladies are less talented. It's more just like, OK, where
(02:54):
do we fit now? This thing that we were all
plugged into, this like ball distribution machine that we had
isn't there. How do we get things going?
How do I get the ball where I want to get the ball?
How do we do this? Who does it?
We had a lot of questions the last two games and not a ton of
answers. What were your like first
(03:15):
thoughts from these games? I think there was a lot of kind
of similar to what you're sayingis what do we do when XY and Z
are not options? I think there were there were a
lot of growing pains specifically when it comes to
what a roster is presenting you.The first game that they faced
(03:35):
this week against the Mystics, Ijust felt like they didn't
really have any answer or solution to the number of post
players they saw. And I thought that was pretty
evidence and the percentage of points that you saw in the paint
and as well as overall shooting percentage not being super
(03:56):
dramatic. It really was just second
opportunities. The offensive rebounds.
Think it just looked in general like there was a struggle that
that gum, that connectivity and that second hand knowledge of
where players are gonna be. That's really hard to establish
when everyone has to kind of step up into those new roles.
(04:17):
Agreed. Yeah, how we're going to look at
this, Me and Keisha kind of decided looking at it, we're
just going to talk about both games kind of together.
So last week the Fever played first the Mystic, and then after
that they played the Sun. Neither game they won.
(04:39):
It was rough to say the least. Both games had a very similar
sort of feel to them, where the first half was fairly
competitive and the second-half really got away from them and
both games felt bad to watch. So we decided let's just mix
those two together since they have so many similarities.
We're going to talk about them both together, so let's throw it
(05:02):
to you first. Keisha, get us started on what
are we looking at here. Well, I think we could start
with a positive and that was a huge milestone for Dwana Bonner
with I think it was first playerto reach what was it 7500 points
correct, 3000 rebounds and 1000 assists in the history of the
(05:24):
WNBA. So that's pretty which.
Is a huge accomplishment. Right.
That is a really big deal and very exciting for her.
And I think, OK, so just with that being a positive, that is
great. It's great when you're more
senior players still have that sort of impact at this point.
(05:44):
And she scored, she was the highscorer for that Mystics game
with I think 21 points. So it's just, you know, I think
it's I think it's great that that that resources there.
It's finding the right plays andgetting into some sort of
rhythm. I think that's really the
overall struggle that I saw. And it doesn't help again,
(06:05):
having Clark out and then multiple injuries in the next
game, That does not make it any easier.
No, it doesn't. It was fantastic in these two
games to see Bonner do what she does best.
We haven't really seen it all year.
Not a long year, not a lot of games, but we haven't seen it
yet on this current Fever team. But Bonner looked really sharp.
(06:31):
She looked really good there. She just felt like she was
having fun even, and being aggressive and feeling herself
out on the court. Like there are a couple times
she'd do like a head fake or like a little like, oh, I'm
going to pass. But then she goes up for it.
It was really cool and somethingthat we really need.
(06:53):
And what made us competitive, atleast in the first half was she
definitely played a huge role inthat 100% also.
So I saw some other good things.One I found that Coulson was
when she was playing and when wewere featuring her, which I
(07:13):
would say both first halves, I found her to be a creative
playmaker. Like she's definitely not
Caitlin Clark. When we picked her up, that was
something that Stephanie had talked about.
Coach Stephanie White had talkedabout that.
They knew they weren't going to fill Caitlin's role when she's
(07:33):
not on the court, but they wanted somebody that could play
with pace, that was comfortable handing the ball and knew what
she was doing. And we have that in Coulson.
We got to see a lot more minuteswith her.
And I felt like when we were having her run our offense, I
thought to myself, this is good.Like if this wasn't what was
(07:54):
happening the whole time, if this was just happening in
spurts throughout a competitive game, I love this.
So I felt like I got a lot of good answers out of Sidney
Coulson while she was playing. I agree.
I think that there has been justsort of this awkward formation
of these different line UPS. I think you're kind of forced to
(08:18):
keep pulling players off the bench trying to fill in these
gaps, especially when there are these injuries occurring again.
And I think that what Sid bringsin, in speed also compliments
Caitlin and also comple compliments Kelsey Mitchell.
So even though there is a different feel and a different
(08:39):
vibe coming from how Sid plays, we're still working with that
same pace. So I think that she was a great
addition to the style that the Fever really has been leaning
into since the beginning of the season.
Mm Hmm. If you didn't watch the games,
she's currently injured as well as Sophie Cunningham.
(09:01):
Those hurt us a lot. So we have as far as guards, our
starting point guard is out, ourbackup point guard is out.
And then I they were calling herthe emergency backup, which is
Sophie is now out as well. So we don't actually have like a
(09:25):
point guard currently on our roster, which is kind of
frustrating. We have people who can do it.
Lexi can do it, Kelsey can do it.
It's not really what they would prefer to be doing.
It's not really their strength, but they both have the skills to
be able to do it. So one thing, the Fever have the
ability to sign one more player in a in a hardship clause, which
(09:52):
is a sucky place to be so early in the season.
But because we only have 8 active players right now, if
you're under 10 active players, you're able to sign somebody.
So I wouldn't be surprised if wesaw somebody signed even just
for this week. The good news is the last game
was 2 days ago now, so we've heard back.
(10:16):
They both got scans. They both look good.
Coach Stephanie White said that we are day-to-day with both
ladies, so you know, not bad. They both got injured.
It sounds like the lowest level of injury that could have
happened. It's not great and it's the same
(10:36):
ankle that Sophie hurt before. So there are concerns.
There's lots of concerns. Well, and you also still take
into consideration that with thekind of injury that Caitlin has,
the estimated date that she's set to return isn't really that
it's her next evaluation. So if they still determine that
(10:58):
she's not ready you, we could belooking at potentially another
week of being down three playersor at least still not having
your best options for point guard.
So hopefully it is good news andeveryone is in a better position
come game time. But I mean, it is early in the
season. So kind of similar to our last
(11:21):
conversation with early injuries, it's is it better to
have them now or to potentially have them towards the end of the
season when you're running out of games to play?
It's. It sucks either way, but.
It's not great. Yeah, it's not great.
So as far as this we're are we league worst than free throws?
Is that the case? I I wrote down league worst 63
(11:45):
coming into the game. I think that's free throws.
It has not been a strength as oflate and especially well.
It's also, it's something that for the amount of time that I
played, a lot of coaches would refer back to free throws when
we had close games. And it's very frustrating when
you lose by two points and you miss 3 free throws.
(12:08):
So it, it's not to say that those points automatically
guarantee the West, but it is pretty demoralizing when you
know, you miss those free opportunities.
And these were close games. There wasn't, I mean, if we kind
of just look at this at the Sun game, Connecticut was shooting
(12:28):
from the field 51%, almost 52. We were shooting 49, 3 point,
they were shooting 50, we were shooting 41.
So there's a little discrepancy there, but free throw 86 for the
Sun, 85 for the Fever. Had the same amount of rebounds,
assists were very similar, steals were similar, same amount
(12:48):
of blocks. Like there weren't these huge
gaps of wow, they gave it away or they were completely out of
the game. Huge comebacks, but it just
wasn't enough. And that's again, really
challenging when your bench is depleted.
Yeah, that was kind of my feeling and why I feel like both
games kind of went similarly where we were in the game and
(13:10):
then all of a sudden we weren't,we were able to like be in the
game. That's like the level of scoring
and defense we were able to do is like that kind of maintenance
level. If it's a close game, we'll stop
a couple times, we'll be able toscore.
But when the other team hit a streak, we were not really able
to respond to the streak with our own.
(13:33):
That's like what I was seeing. And so once we started getting
in trouble in the games and we're looking for answers like
how are we going to get back in this?
There essentially were no answers.
It was like we don't have a way to get back in this.
We can we can maybe get a few stops.
We can continue to score. They're not going to stop us
(13:54):
from scoring. But we weren't going to be able
to just like completely put the brakes on the other team and
just go on a nice little run to get us back in the game.
That didn't seem like a speed that we were able to like hit as
a team. No, and unfortunate.
I mean, I guess again, the positive being that the Mystics
(14:17):
game they played not their best.You definitely saw improvement
going into the game against Connecticut, but that's another
snapshot of what performance could look like when you're
relying on certain rosters to beavailable.
And maybe this was the wake up call that was needed to say we
(14:38):
need to work on those combinations.
We have to put out Otter op options just so that we have
that experience and it's not so felt very foreign on the court.
I felt like there was a lot of fluidity against their opponents
showing where the opponents seemto know a little bit, know each
other a little bit more. And again, I think it just was.
(14:58):
The combinations were just not that common and it read
uncomfortable. Yeah, that's kind of what I was
saying. Like it.
I feel like what we saw was a new team without the catalyst of
Caitlin Clark. And I mean, catalyst like, not
necessarily like taking away thefact that she is her own engine,
(15:19):
that she has her own points, that she scores, that she's
productive completely on her own, but she has this ability to
be a catalyst for our offense and for our players.
Each one of our starting lineup players and some of our bench
are just absolutely flat out fantastic basketball players who
(15:39):
really have some strengths that need to be reckoned with by the
other team. But what I saw in the last two
games was we weren't able to getthose players consistently to
their strength when we needed to.
And I feel like that was really a sign of like, this team hasn't
bonded and found out how to do that like on its own yet.
(16:03):
It was like speed up, like I said, by Caitlin Clark, which
makes sense. She is absolutely as good as she
is as everything else. She's truly legendary.
I would say at distribution, that's something that we haven't
even begin to see. I think the tip of the iceberg
because last year she was great,but we all know she had a lot of
(16:25):
turnovers too. There's tons of room for
improvement there and I think wesee that.
We saw that here and unlike you were kind of going into, we did
get a lot of answers and we're put in a pretty uncomfortable
place last week that I think is good for a team early in the
season to have to ask yourself these kinds of questions.
(16:48):
How do we get the ball where it needs to be?
How do we feed Aaliyah Boston inthe paint?
That was something we did not have an answer for.
And there was a really interesting thing we tried.
I think with the Mystic we decided to start not with the
Mystic. It was with the that was a
really interesting thing that wetried with the sun was we tried
(17:12):
initiating the offense through Boston above the nail, which was
I was like, ha, look at that. And it worked for a little
while, you know, because Boston knows what she's doing.
She's very talented. Anyone else that you're going to
put up there she's going to be able to beat?
So we were kind of running this reverse version of the two man
(17:34):
game that we normally see with Caitlin and AB, but instead
we're having her run it. But that led to some problems as
well because all of a sudden we were getting like no rebounds
and I was like, what is going on?
And we kept seeing smaller bodies down there and I'm like,
where's AB? And I'm like, oh right, ABS at
the top. We're not seeing her down low,
(17:57):
which hurt us in a big way. I think it was an interesting
like concept that I think workedfor a couple minutes.
And that's the thing, like, so we're seeing people on the floor
that aren't going to be on the floor together for, you know, 30
minutes. We're seeing all these rotations
that are supposed to be on the floor together for like 5.
(18:19):
And I think we got a lot of goodfilm for like 5 minute spurts.
But I think the other team very quickly was like, oh, we know
how to deal with this. It's not too hard to to to
solve. Yeah, that's what I saw.
I don't know what. No, it was, it was a pretty, it
(18:40):
was a pretty frustrating week. But I mean, when it comes to the
mistakes, I think there was justthey did not have solutions for
the depth of post player available.
And their their posts were just getting beat up by Aaliyah
Edwards and Shakira Austin. And it was just hard.
(19:02):
It was a hard, it was a battle. But the the depth there and the
amount of options that they had it, it was just, yeah, I didn't,
I didn't really see a way for there to be success if they
could not figure out a way to stop Kiki and it just was not
happening that night. I mean, that happens.
There are just times when the pieces aren't falling together.
(19:24):
But hopefully going into this next week, there will be lots of
film to review. There will be lots of strategies
going on. Wondering what the depth of the
bench is gonna be like. So I think there's going to be a
lot of creativity and probably some interesting lineups to come
as they try to figure out what this is going to this is going
(19:45):
to look like, especially becausethis upcoming game is going to
be against the Mystics. So what have you, what have we
learned? Are we prepared?
What will that look like and who's going to be available?
I think that is one of the positives coming out of this is
I don't feel like, oh, this justisn't a talented enough group of
(20:06):
players. Or even that they can't play
together. That is not the feeling I got.
I felt like this team, they worked like we know for a fact
that in training camp they were running things with Caitlin in
there. So this is a brand new problem
that they are just starting to figure out how to solve.
(20:26):
And I do feel like between the talent on the floor and between
our coach, we're going to see a lot of answers.
And then at the end of the day, like we kind of talked about,
oh, is this going to be a problem us getting too gelled
without Caitlin? No, I'm realizing watching it,
no, it's not going to be a problem.
It'll be great to have all of these answers in our pocket
(20:49):
delayed in the season when hopefully we have everybody
healthy and we need to go to some sort of weird off speed
pitch sort of lineup. We'll have it and we'll know how
to do it. And they'll be like, oh, that
thing that we did back back in June, yeah, let's do that thing.
It's going to work in this situation.
I do feel really hopeful in thatI think it's really obvious from
(21:13):
this conversation that I am not a general feeling the most
hopeful. It was very frustrating to
watch. But I do see a light at the end
of the tunnel. I do see that there's a lot of
room for growth, which is a goodplace to be when your roster
looks like it is. It's not like we're doing the
(21:34):
absolute best we can do and we're getting beat.
No execution was down the both the last two games.
There were little bobbles, therewere missed layups.
Like it wasn't just that it wasn't all just formational like
team build problems. I think everyone is off their
game and that's frustrating but also very understandable.
(21:58):
They're put in a tough situationright now.
No, there's just there. As a Phoenix Mercury fan, Kai
Copper's been out the entire season.
Elisa Thomas just went out and those are two huge players for
us. So I don't think it's just
unfortunately it's a slow growing issue that just hits
teams at certain times and it's infuriating.
(22:20):
Certain lineups you don't get tosee they're playing against
folks you know that they can dominate against and it just
doesn't happen. So just trying to imagine that
everyone who has been dealing with injury is healing and is
taking the rest that they need. Absolutely.
OK, so before we get into our upcoming games this week, we're
(22:42):
going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Feeling stressed? Take a moment to breathe.
With just two minutes of guided deep breathing, you can reset
your focus and calm your mind. Try now, inhale deeply and
(23:08):
exhale. Wow, Ready for more peace in
your day after daydreaming aboutwhat your favorite women's
basketball team would look like if their stars were healthy?
Me too. Me too.
Deep breathing. It's always there for you.
(23:30):
All right, we're back. This week.
We have the Mystics again, and Ido.
After talking to you, Keisha, I've decided I do feel hopeful
about this Mystics game. I think that that was a winnable
(23:53):
game and even if we just hit some free throws, we might have
been in that one. So you know what?
Maybe we'll do that. And then it looks like on
Saturday, the 7th of June, we'regoing to be playing the sky
again. So we're seeing a lot of similar
faces to begin the year. Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe that'll help us like kind of the consistency on the other
(24:15):
side will help us kind of tweak what we're doing on ours.
But what do you got for us, Keisha?
Well, I think now that we're getting back into the options of
seeing some of these folks again, I do hope that we are
looking at film and studying, getting prepared because
especially team like the Mystics, they just have so many
(24:38):
options. There's just so many different
cards they can pull. They do have the Shakira Austin
available, Stephanie Dolson, Elliott Edwards, Emily Inks,
Lawyer as well as Kiki Earphin. They all play the same position
and they're all so very different and they bring
different threats onto the courtand that's just their big.
Then you have Lucy Olsen, who can get hot behind the three,
(25:00):
Britney Sykes, who's on a heater, who's just scoring and
stealing and blocking and gets up in the air like a freakazoid.
And then son Sonia Citron, who she can drive, she can shoot,
she can facilitate. I feel like the Mystics last
season definitely weren't as strong and people could tend to
overestimate their their bench against theirs.
(25:23):
So that again is going to be a tough game.
But we have to, we have to fix those issues from the previous
round. Yeah, I mean, the first look for
me at the Mystic, I was impressed.
It's a big improvement from lastyear.
Citron looked extremely composedout there.
(25:44):
I was like, this is a brand new,she's brand new to this league.
She didn't seem like she was brand new.
She was making some really big plays and it was very
impressive. They're a good team this year,
so that'll be that'll be a good one for us to continue to
improve on. What about the what about the
(26:05):
Sky? Our second try with the Sky.
With the sky, I think that some of the some of the folks got to
watch out for include and kind of start with Courtney Vander
Sloot because she has the skill to make incredible passes.
She also is really great at attacking the basket.
She finds these really incredible angles on her drives.
(26:28):
So she's going to really dictatewhat the game looks like.
And then he'll even with is healthy.
Angel Reese is healthy, key and Nurse is healthy and Cardoso is
healthy. So a lot of players who were
having some issues in the last few seasons, they're on newer
teams, but they are ready. And another big threat that is
looking better and better would be Ariel Atkins.
(26:48):
She is attacking and she is aggressive.
So this is not gonna be a walk in the park with or without
Caitlin, with or without Sid andSophie.
It's gonna be a competitive weekand hopefully most of those
folks are back that. Just makes me so sad.
(27:10):
OK, friends, so we're going to be with you with all the highs
and the lows of the Fever season.
So you know what, if that's whatyou need, if you just need some
people to be sad with after a tough week of basketball, we got
you here. We try and keep things a little
(27:31):
bit positive. So if you like to be kind of a
griefer and scream, you're not going to get that out of us, but
we're going to be with. You not on air.
Not on air, but trust me, there's plenty of screaming and
frustrations that happen in the text chat.
So yeah, there's always that. Anyway, Fever fans, thank you
(27:54):
for sticking with us with another episode of Fever Replay.
We absolutely love getting to dothis with you guys and we're
excited to see where this seasongoes and where this podcast
goes. So we'll see you next week and
(28:15):
hopefully we got good news for you.
Let's go. Good news.
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