Game 3 of the opening-round series between the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever revealed the difference between A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark.
Both are among the league’s very best players. Wilson, in fact, is the front-runner for WNBA MVP, while Clark will surely be in the running.
Both can dominate a game by their mere presence.
But only one proved both of those things in Game 3 with their team’s seasons on the line.
After a massive start to the game, putting up 11 points in the first quarter, Clark slowed down significantly through the rest of the contest, finishing with 18 points on 6-of-18 shooting (3-of-12 from deep) with just four assists to go with six turnovers. She made only two second-half field goals and missed all of her long-range attempts.
On top of that, while she amassed a surprising four blocks in the contest and held her own as a one-on-one defender better than usual, she got lost on a few occasions with her rotations, giving up multiple critical three-pointers.
In short, exactly the kind of game you can’t have when it’s winner-take-all for a chance to advance in the playoffs.
What's next for Clark?
Now, don’t get it twisted: Clark is still a really good player despite all this. Anyone who tells you she’s not is trolling.
But she’s too boom-or-bust to get the Fever (and herself) where they want to go right now. We’ve seen too often how much Clark can run hot and cold, stacking up highlights for whole quarters and then suddenly falling out of rhythm the next minute. The problem there is that Clark has a tendency to get frustrated and hunt shots rather than run Stephanie White’s offense and lean fully into her true superpower—her playmaking—which often compounds her struggles.
She also doesn’t utilize one of her quickest developing skills—her midrange jumper—enough when teams gear up to stop her out at the three-point line and needs to play off the ball more so that she can be more of a catch-and-shoot sniper rather than having to create everything herself.
As great as Clark is, there are levels to this. Wilson, who had games of 38 and 36 points in this series, showed us that. If Clark wants to be an MVP and WNBA champion, that’s the standard of consistency she needs to hit.
Otherwise, even if she puts together huge regular-season stats, playoff success will elude her and the Fever going forward.
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