The Liberty‘s final regular-season trip to Indiana comes at a juncture where the Fever are no longer an easy “W” on the schedule.
But the Liberty (17-3) enter Saturday as heavy favorites in the road matchup, one that begins a stretch against potential Eastern Conference postseason teams before the league takes an Olympic break.
Saturday’s matchup against Caitlin Clark and the Fever precedes two matchups each against the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky.
“Massive,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello described the current stretch of games before Tuesday’s win over the Minnesota Lynx. The head coach then added: “Winning these ones [are] critical for us … we’d like to finish in the top two [in the standings].”
First up is Christie Sides’ Fever team, who’ve seemed to turned things around since dropping two early-season games against the Liberty. The Fever’s last matchup against Brondello’s squad ended with a 36-point shellacking on June 2 at Barclays Center. In the three matchups against the Liberty this season, the Fever have lost by an average of 27.6 points.
The Fever finished June with a 7-4 record, after a dismal 1-8 record in May. The biggest reason for the Fever’s early slide was the brutal schedule: the first five games came against some of the league’s best teams (two vs. New York, two vs. Connecticut and Seattle). The team also suffered losses to back-to-back champs Las Vegas Aces, the Los Angeles Sparks and again to the superteam Storm to end the month.
The schedule evening out — along with the young core’s adjustment to the professional game — can be credited for the turnaround.
After facing countless blitzes that led to even more turnovers, Clark has settled down in the Fever’s offense. She still leads the league in turnovers (5.7), but will enter the Liberty matchup averaging 16.0 points, 7.1 assists and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 39.1% from the field and 33.7% from deep. And her June splits — 40.4/35.1/87.5 — improved after a tough May — 37.7/32.0/89.4.
Perhaps All-Star Jonquel Jones was correct in her assessment of Clark following the May 18 matchup, saying Clark needs to be given some “grace.”
“I think the media needs to give her a little bit of grace and time to develop into a player,” Jones said after the 91-80 victory over the Fever at Barclays Center. “She’s learning every game she’s out there. Obviously, her impact on this league is going to be tremendous and only grow as she matures.”
And the team — winners of its last four home games — has figured out how to benefit from Clark’s spacing to further involve franchise cornerstone Aliyah Boston. After a slow start, the 2023 unanimous Rookie of the Year winner is recording 13.3 points per game, 8.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 blocks per game.
Before suffering a loss to the Aces on Tuesday, the duo showed a national television audience of what the future could look like. Clark nearly registered a triple-double (16 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds) while Boston shot 6-of-9 from the field for a team-high 17 points and eight bounds en route to a 15-point comeback to defeat the Phoenix Mercury on the road Sunday.
Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell is helping with guard duties as well, entering Saturday averaging 16.6 points per game on 43.4% shooting. The trio of Mitchell, Clark and Boston were selected to this year’s All-Star Game, despite the team having a sub .500 record (8-13).
