With the game on the line, you need to put the ball in the hands of your best players, and Stephanie White confusingly opted not to do that tonight against the Atlanta Dream. The Fever fought hard all game to put themselves in position to win a tough game that they trailed in for most of the night.
Brittney Griner was a beast, going 8-13 from the field. Griner is a 10x all-star, champion, and Olympic gold medalist. When she shows up, it's going to be a long night, and that's exactly what it was for Indiana. Add in a 50% shooting night with 13 rebounds from Brionna Jones, and you're in for Sinners-level terror.
To Indy's credit, they never gave up hope, no matter how many times the Dream pushed the lead after they narrowed it. But at the end of the day, it was a winnable game, and with less than 10 second on the clock and a dead ball on a side out-of-bounds, the decisions made by White cost this team an opportunity at a 2-0 start to what has the potential to be a special season for Indy.
The Fever had three better options for the final play
As potent as Atlanta was offensively, the Fever never let their foot off the gas. You got exactly what you wanted from the three best players on the team. Aliyah Boston scored 24 points, grabbed 10 boards, added four assists, and two blocks to her stat sheet. She was 9-13 from the floor.
Kelsey Mitchell was 9-15 from the field, dropping another 24 points to go along with two assists and a steal. She made a couple of huge shots in the fourth quarter and knocked down both of her free throw attempts.
Caitlin Clark scored eight points in the final period. It included two threes (2-4), and she added three assists. She finished with 27 points, 11 assists, five rebounds, and two steals. She had a triple-double in the Fever's first game of the year, and this performance was arguably better.
So, with these three threats on the floor, why is Clark inbounding the ball to Natasha Howard without even trying to get back in the play to get it back? Howard was 3-8 up until that point in the game and finished 3-9 for six points. I'm not even blaming her. She shouldn't have been put in that situation.
If you watch the play closely, the biggest threat on the court just stands out of bounds after she gets the ball in. There was zero intention to get the ball back to #22. Clark doesn't have to take every last shot, but Boston and Mitchell provided two other options that would have given Indy a real shot at stealing game two and starting their run undefeated.
Alas, we can only hope that Stephanie White makes better decisions in similar situations down the line, but she certainly let this one slip.