Caitlin Clark had a difficult playoff debut, suffering a black eye after an accidental collision in her team’s loss to the Connecticut Sun.
The Indiana Fever’s star rookie missed 10 of her first 11 shots before scoring 11 points and 8 assists in the team’s 93-69 loss on Sunday. The star of the show was the Sun’s Alyssa Thompson, who posted a stellar triple-double with 12 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds.
“I felt like we just played a crappy game,” Clark said. “The flow of the game was really bad.”
The AP Rookie of the Year player also took personal responsibility for the loss and refused to use the blow to the eye that left her with bruises as an excuse for her bad night.
“Hit me pretty good in the eye; I don’t think it affected me,” she said of the first-quarter injury. “I felt like I had good shots, they just didn’t go in. That was a tough moment. I thought I had some really good chances. Three pretty open threes in the first half, that’s what you usually hit.”
Clark’s shooting woes continued into the third quarter before the Fever called a timeout. The defender hit the bench with a chair in frustration. That seemed to get her going, as she came out and hit her next three shots. Unfortunately for Indiana, Connecticut defender Marina Mabrey came on hot, scoring 11 of her 27 points in the third quarter, and the Fever were never able to recover.
“My shot felt like it was right there,” said Clark, who finished the game 4 of 17 field goals, missing 11 of her 13 three-point attempts. “It’s so frustrating for a shooter when it doesn’t go in. That’s the bad part about it. … We were right there, I think we cut it to eight, but then they came back and hit us with a three-pointer.”
The Sun switched up their defense when it came to covering Clark. The 6-foot-4 DeWanna Bonner spent most of the night holding off the 6-foot-4 Clark. “I accepted the challenge, and she’ll be on fire next game,” Bonner said.
Clark gets another chance in Game 2 on Wednesday and hopes to send the series back to Indiana for a decisive third game on Friday.
In Sunday’s other playoff games, Leonie Fiebich hit four three-pointers and scored a career-high 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting, Breanna Stewart added 20 points and 11 rebounds and the New York Liberty never trailed in their 83-69 victory over the Atlanta Dream. Napheesa Collier scored a career-high 38 points and Minnesota blew a 23-point lead before rallying to beat Phoenix in Game 1 of their series.
In the other first-round matchup, A’ja Wilson scored 21 points and blocked five shots after winning her record third MVP award. The Las Vegas Aces, the two-time defending champions, held the Seattle Storm to two free throws in the fourth quarter and pulled away 78-67. “The MVP was the MVP,” Seattle coach Noelle Quinn said after the game. “She’s MVP for a reason.”
