The Indiana Fever have a very good coach in Stephanie White, even if the team isn’t off to the hottest start for 2026.
White has a 92-56 overall record as a WNBA head coach and is 13-13 in the playoffs. She has taken one team (the Fever in 2015) to the finals and three others (the 2023, 2024 Connecticut Sun, the 2025 Fever) to the semifinals. In fact, she’s never missed the WNBA playoffs as a head coach.
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Her work in leading an injury-plagued Fever team to the 2025 WNBA semis last fall, even going so far as to pushing the eventual champion Las Vegas Aces to overtime in Game 5 on the road, is perhaps her crowning achievement.
However, with Indiana off to a 1-2 start on the very young 2026 season, the critiques will pour in again because that’s how professional sports work. What have you done for me extremely lately?
While her team has the second-hottest offense in the league and has two players (Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell) in the top five for scoring averages, the Fever are allowing the third-worst average of opponent scoring in the W right now. The defensive end has been a massive struggle in two home games against the Dallas Wings and Washington Mystics and in a fourth quarter mini-collapse against the Los Angeles Sparks.
Now, one of those games was without free agent forward Monique Billings (Dallas) and one of those games was with superstar center Aliyah Boston exiting in the third quarter with an injury (Washington). Against the Sparks, the team was operating admirably on both sides of the ball. Indy has only played three games in the season so far; it’s very, very early to make any grand assumptions, even if some trends are starting to emerge and are worth noticing.
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Even in the team’s L.A. win, White talked about wanting the defense to improve and joked with Clark about coaches wanting more… even if the results are positive. Clark got a kick out of it, but it underscores White’s determination to get this defense right. Friday night’s game was a step in the wrong direction there, but that’s going to happen with a new season. Lineups will get tested, different players will need different amounts of time to round form, injuries will pop up, results will be wonky. The absolute worst time of year to try and glean anything from a WNBA team is May.
The Fever will eventually figure the defense out. While it might not be elite, the team eventually found a seventh-ranked defense in 2025 amid all the injuries and lineup changes. If Indy’s defense can even just be mediocre, the team can cause a lot of problems in the playoffs. There’s still time for the defense to get good once players get more comfortable with the formations and White settles on her preferred lineups as the season wears on.
White is one of the league’s better Xs and Os coach, despite what you may see on social media. Just look at this play the team drew up on Friday night to force overtime on Washington. Look at the way she gets Clark in position with a great look for the sensational guard to knock down one of the most electric 3-pointers of her young career.
What about Caitlin Clark?
Even though, again, it’s still very early, White is coaching Clark through the best season of her WNBA career so far. Her scoring average through three games (25.3 ppg) is a career-best, while her 3-point shooting average (30.3%) is improving from last year’s 13-game sample (27.9%). Even past the statistics, she’s making better decisions on the court, being more judicious when she chucks up a logo 3 ball and passing as well as she ever has in her WNBA career. Clark is thriving in White’s system; she’s showing why she’s a game-altering talent and one of the W’s best.
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However, the Fever as a whole have flaws that will need addressing in the weeks and months to come. The defense overall needs a lot of work. The communication on that end of the floor has been hazy, leading to coverage breakdowns and easy buckets for the opponents in the paint and at the perimeter. The intensity on that side of the ball dwindles a bit; consistency is perhaps the biggest improvement point. As the players get more conditioned to play regular season minutes, that should get better. Personnel issues with the back half of the roster might illuminate more as the season goes on, but the depth could also show more promise as the team gels overall.
White knows that the Fever can’t bank on outscoring teams each and every night in the WNBA to get where the franchise wants to go. Remarkably, the team has scored 100-plus points in two games, and both of those were losses. Indiana can’t let up 100-plus points a night just as it can clearly put up 100-plus points whenever it wants. The defensive improvements will make or break the season for the Fever eventually. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be better than what is on the court right now. White is a great coach to help there, however.
She oversaw elite defenses with the Connecticut Sun in 2023 and 2024, league-best in both years, in fact. Her defenses with the Fever in 2015 and 2016 were right around league-average, not a detriment in the slightest. Again, the eighth-ranked defense the team had in the regular season last year for opposing points averaged is the worst for one of White’s teams in her career as a head coach. The statistics alone indicate that Indiana’s defense will improve at least to league-average at some point in the season, if not better than that. That can win a title.
For now, improvements are on the menu. The Fever have the talent and coaching acumen to figure things out in short order. As long as the team can stay healthy (or at least healthier than it was in 2025), Indiana should figure itself to be a dangerous playoff contender in the fall. The early results feel wonky, but they also feel indicative of a team still figuring itself out and finding its voice. White has proven herself capable of leading numerous teams far in the playoffs. With the Fever, she has the best group of top-line talent in her career. She’s the right person for the job to maximize what this group can do and see how far it can go, for now and in the years to come. Don’t listen to the hot heads on the internet who think White hates Clark or is bad coach. Indy is right where it needs to be right now.
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This article originally appeared on For The Win: Stephanie White is the right coach for Caitlin Clark and the Fever
