Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever appeared poised to come away with a signature win on Saturday early in the fourth quarter.
With 8:35 left to play, Fever forward Natasha Howard’s tip-in bucket put Indiana up 80-68 over the reigning WNBA champion New York Liberty. That was after trailing by 15 points midway through the second quarter.
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But, a fourth-quarter scoring drought that exceeded four minutes played a large part in ultimately dooming Indiana in what morphed into a 90-88 loss. It was also ripe with a little controversy down the stretch.
With the game deadlocked at 88 apiece and the Fever in possession of the basketball inside the final 15 seconds, Clark drove the lane and bounced underneath for DeWanna Bonner. Bonner’s shot was blocked by Natasha Cloud, but there was body contact.
Then, on the ensuing trip down the floor, Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu earned a pair of free throws on a drive where she collided with Fever guard Lexie Hull. Indiana head coach Stephanie White was frustrated by the non-call on Bonner and then the subsequent foul call on Hull.
“I thought it was egregious, honestly. I thought it was obvious. I felt like AB got one, had one going to the rim. They’re in rotation. DB’s was crazy. And then Lexie’s, I feel like equally. We talk about coming into the path and it was an offensive player veering into the defensive player’s path. It is what it is. We have to be able to play through it, but, at the same time, I feel like it’s really disrespectful,” White said.
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After Ionescu sank both free throws, the Fever had one final chance after a reset timeout to advance the basketball. The inbounds pass came into Clark who sprinted from the paint back out to the 3-point line. With Cloud chasing, Clark collected the pass, turned and tried to drive.
Cloud ripped the basketball free, but White felt Clark was fouled.
“I thought she got fouled. I think it’s pretty egregious what’s been happening to us the last few games. A minus-31 free throw discrepancy. I might be able to understand it if we were just chucking threes, but we’re not. We’re attacking the rim and the disrespect right now for our team has been pretty unbelievable. So, it’s disappointing that it doesn’t go both ways or it hasn’t gone both ways, but we also can’t allow that to consume us. We’ve got to be able to play through that. We’ve got to be able to control the things that we can control,” White said.
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Afterwards, Clark said she hadn’t watched the play back yet.
“I haven’t watched it yet, but used a reset timeout, ran it a little bit different, similar play to what we ran the other night when we played Atlanta here. I don’t know. I’ll have to go back and watch. I don’t know,” Clark said.
Fever forward Aliyah Boston enjoyed a standout performance, notching her second double-double of the season with 27 points and 13 rebounds.
Following the loss, Boston was asked how they accept officiating without letting it affect how they execute the rest of the game.
“Yeah, when it comes to accepting, we don’t really have a choice, because they’re going to call what they want to call. So, for us, even for me, I missed some of those easy around the rim. For me, I have to put them in the rim for just post-talk. And we just have to finish through contact. If we don’t get it, we don’t get it, but we have to give ourselves the best opportunity to get that basket,” Boston said.
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Ultimately, the Fever know that they have to execute in the margins better moving forward.
“I felt like at times our late-game execution was good and I consider most of the latter half of the fourth quarter, because it was a tight ball game. We’re still not recognizing our mismatches. I felt like AB had plenty of opportunities we could have gotten her touches down low. We had some turnovers, key turnovers. We settled at times. We fought, but we can’t dig ourselves a hole from the beginning,” White said.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Indiana Fever comment on late-game officiating vs New York Liberty
