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Caitlin Clark has career scoring day, but Indiana Fever drop third straight to open season
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Caitlin Clark scored a career-high 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting on Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to lift the winless Indiana Fever to their first victory of the season. Still, a 91-80 loss to the New York Liberty was a step in the right direction after Clark was completely shut down in a 36-point defeat at the hands of New York on Thursday.
The WNBA’s No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft was playing her first game in New York and certainly put on a show. Clark had 10 points in the first quarter, hitting 4 of her 5 shots. She also had a logo 3 waived off after it was deemed a foul occurred before the shot.
Clark had just 9 points on Thursday, missing 6 of her 7 shot attempts from 3. In the rematch with New York on Saturday, Clark hit 4-of-10 from downtown while adding 8 assists and 6 rebounds. She did finish with 8 turnovers — an early albeit unsurprising issue for the rookie — but generally looked more comfortable in her third WNBA game.
“I thought I came out and just played harder and I think that’s really just my biggest focus going forward,” Clark said after the game. “Just come out and compete and play hard. Our whole group did that.”
Clark’s gravity was on full display Saturday, as the Liberty garnered the largest paid gate for a single game since the WNBA’s inception in 1997. The Liberty brought in more than $2 million in ticket revenue for the game, according to the Associated Press, and sold out the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with 17,735 fans in attendance.
Earlier this week, Clark’s official debut for the Fever drew 2.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched WNBA game since 2001. One future opponent has also already moved both scheduled meetings with the Fever from their WNBA home arena to an NBA arena to accommodate the demand to watch Clark.
But the attention comes with a price. The adjustment to the WNBA has been stark for Clark, who was a 2-time collegiate player of the year. Her 9-point showing on Thursday was the first time she’d failed to reach double-digits in a game since Jan. 9, 2021. That game (8 points in a loss) was the only time in her 4-year NCAA career Clark was held under 10 points.
“The physicality is definitely up there. … I’m easily pushed off screens,” Clark said Thursday, per ESPN. “The game seems a little fast for me right now. The more I play and the more comfortable I get, it’s going to slow down a little bit. It will be easier for me to make reads, see things develop.”
Clark is just 3 games into what promises to be a lengthy career. Flashes of her promise have been present throughout. She’s still the overwhelming favorite to win Rookie of the Year, with FanDuel pricing Clark -1000 against the field.
Indiana returns home to face the Connecticut Sun on Monday (ESPN, 7 p.m. ET).
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.