Caitlin Clark's Fever blow double-digit lead to Liberty in another disastrous collapse
The Indiana Fever's early-season struggles deepened Saturday night at the hands of the New York Liberty, who erased a 12-point second-half deficit to hand Indiana an 83-75 loss at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The defeat marks the latest in a string of blown leads for the Fever, who have now squandered significant advantages in games against the Washington Mystics and Golden State Valkyries as well.
New York's comeback was fueled in large part by Indiana's carelessness with the ball. The Fever committed turnovers at critical junctures, allowing the Liberty to capitalize in transition and steadily chip away at the margin before seizing control.
The Liberty played the entire game without star guard Sabrina Ionescu, who remained sidelined with a lingering injury.
Caitlin Clark endured one of her most difficult shooting performances in the WNBA. The Fever guard connected on only four of her 14 field goal attempts and turned the ball over three times. She finished just one make short of tying the worst shooting outing of her career, a 3-for-14 performance against the Valkyries last season.
Clark's struggles, however, were far from the Fever's only issue. Frontcourt star Aliyah Boston and guard Kelsey Mitchell combined for eight turnovers and shot 36.1 percent from the field, a marked downturn for two players Indiana had counted on to anchor the offense.
The loss pushes the Fever further from the championship aspirations they carried into the season. After 10 games, the results have fallen well short of expectations, and the spotlight on first-year head coach Stephanie White continues to intensify. White, hired in the offseason to elevate a talented roster, has so far been unable to steady a team that has struggled to close out games it once appeared to control.
Indiana will look to stop the bleeding Tuesday night on the road against the Washington Mystics. With a loss, the Fever could slip to fifth place in the Eastern Conference standings, a position that would underscore just how far the team's start has deviated from its preseason billing.