There are so many parallels between the Pacers of two seasons ago and the playoff-bound Fever, it’s eerie.
Both teams got off to clunky starts. Both teams were near the bottom of the league in defense, but slowly, almost imperceptibly improved during the course of the regular season. Both teams led, and lead the league in scoring, the Fever establishing themselves as the highest-scoring team in regular-season WNBA history. The same questions were, and are being asked about the two franchises: Can they simply out-score opponents while making noise in the playoffs? Can they continue to play with the breakneck tempo they displayed all throughout the regular season?
It worked for the Pacers, who played their unique style and ultimately lost to Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
Can it work for the Fever, who open their best-of-3 first-round matchup with the Las Vegas Aces Sunday in Vegas?
Well…why not?
The Fever are a tough call right now, having played their best basketball the second half of the season before splitting the season-ending series with the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx in twin blowouts. But we know what they say about playoff basketball. It’s all about defense, about being muscular on the boards, about doing all the dirty things well.
At least that’s what they said before the Pacers went on their run, during which they continued to play the kind of free-wheeling offensive basketball they played all throughout the regular season.
Whether the Fever can do the same with the highest-scoring backcourt in league history – Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell – is the million-dollar question.
After Tuesday night’s home victory over Minnesota in the regular-season’s penultimate game, I asked Clark, “What do you like about your team heading into the playoffs and what gives you reasons for concern?”
She answered:
“I think what I like is that, you know, we’re scary when we’re clicking,” she said. “We’re the best offensive team in the league and we’ve shown moments when we can be really good defensively.
“I don’t think there’s areas of concern; I wouldn’t say that. Like, I feel very confident in everything and everybody that we have in this locker room. And for us, it’s just finding the level of consistency – like that third quarter (against Minnesota Tuesday, when the Fever started to blow a 26-point lead), we eliminate that and I think we’re a championship contender. It’s moments like that you just can’t have, especially in the playoffs.
“But I think this team has done some really great things. We have a lot of different weapons. We have a lot of different things we can get to on offense and even on defense. We believe in each other and pour into each other because it’s going to take everybody we have in our locker room. It’s can’t just be me, Aliyah (Boston) and Kelz (Kelsey Mitchell). And I thought (Tuesday night) was a great example of what we can do. We had an 84% assist rate. So if we play like that, I think we’re really going to be hard to stop.”
The issue is what happened Thursday night back in Minnesota. When the Fever aren’t hitting their shots, when Clark is scoring a career-low two points and Mitchell fails to score 20 after going 27 straight games with 20 or more, the Fever can’t compete. They got punched in the mouth by the Lynx, who played without star rookie guard Olivia Miles.
And now, there’s concern about an injury Boston suffered during Thursday night’s regular-season finale. We should get greater clarity on that later today.
A year ago, the short-handed Fever, carried all playoff long by Mitchell’s heroics, pushed the Aces to five games in last year’s semifinals, losing in overtime after Mitchell’s body broke down late with full-body cramps. This year, the Fever beat the Aces twice in three games, going to overtime in their only loss.
But the Aces, well, they’re the Aces, the most dominant franchise in the league the last number of years, winning the WNBA title last year and three times in the last four years. They are headed to the playoffs on a 7-game winning streak. With A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray, Vegas is loaded with superior talent.
The question is whether the Fever’s style of play – lots of offense, inconsistent on defense – will hold up in the post-season and this best 2-of-3 series with Vegas.
I asked coach Stephanie White the same question I posed to Clark, talking to her before the Tuesday game.
What do you like, what concerns you?
“I love our pace, I really love our pace,” White said. “When we play with pace, I think we’re really hard to stop. And that’s not just in the full court, getting up and down the floor. That’s in the half court as well and how hard we’re cutting, how quickly the ball is moving, the urgency with which we’re getting from one oint to the other. I like our ability to make shots.
“Now we’ve got to get AB (Boston) going. We’ve got to find a way to get her some touches. She’s got to be a focal point of everything that we do, whether it’s playing through her and using her as a facilitator, or whether it’s getting her opportunities to score at the rim. We’ve got to get more from our bench from a consistency standpoint. And we’ve got to be in the middle of the pack in terms of our defensive efficiency.”
Only one team in WNBA history has led the league in scoring and won the WNBA title; that was the 2014 Phoenix Mercury, coached by offensive savant Paul Westhead.
Can the Fever be the second?
It’s going to be a challenge because playoff basketball is usually a very different kind of basketball. The issue is whether the Fever can simply out-score people, as they often did during the regular season.
“From here on out, teams aren’t going to let us do what we want to do, right?” White said. “We like to have a rhythm, we like to have a flow, and good teams are going to take that away from you. They’re not going to allow us to play in transition. They’re not going to allow us to freely move the ball. They’re not going to allow us our first and second action.
“In terms of grit, it’s like we’ve got to be willing to play through the mud, so to speak. Like, we’ve got to be willing to be intentional about getting to second, third and sometimes our fourth action. We’ve got to be willing to be gritty on the defensive end of the floor We’ve go to be willing to get on the floor after loose balls. We’ve got to play with multiple levels of effort. We’ve got to play with more physicality than we’ve been playing with…We’ve got to dictate and that’s another level of physical, mental, emotional toughness that this group is growing into.”
Do they have what it takes?
Not entirely sure they do.
But if they can play their game, the way the Pacers continued to play their game throughout the post-season, the Fever can pull off the upset and move on to the WNBA semifinals.
Make mine the Aces in three games.
But I wouldn’t be shocked – or disappointed -- if I’m wrong.