Stephanie White Lays Out Fever’s Clear Problem After Collapse Against Sparks originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The Los Angeles Sparks rallied for an 85-75 victory over the short-handed Indiana Fever at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, erasing a 10-point deficit near the start of the fourth quarter and snapping a four-game skid.
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Azura Stevens led all scorers with 23 points, hauling in seven rebounds and dishing three assists, while Kelsey Plum added 21 points and six assists, punctuating the Sparks’ fourth-quarter surge.
Indiana, missing star Caitlin Clark due to a nagging groin injury, saw its third collapse in four games when leading by double digits in the second half, prompting pointed questions for coach Stephanie White after the game.
When asked why her team has failed to close out games as of late, White was blunt.
“I think that we haven’t shown a killer instinct yet. We have had a tendency to relax in those moments instead of, for lack of a better term, go for the kill,” White said.
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“We’ve had empty possessions where we’ve been too lax with the basketball and have either taken poor shots or not valued every opportunity we have to score. We’ve had breakdowns on the defensive end of the floor. It’s moments of mental lapses or mental relaxation that you can’t have in this league.”
Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White.Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
With the loss, the Fever fall to 7-8 on the season, now tied with the Washington Mystics and just a few games above the bottom-dwelling Chicago Sky and Connecticut Sun in the Eastern Conference.
With eight matchups between now and the All-Star break on July 19, corrective measures are urgent.
Next up, Indiana heads out on the road to face the Dallas Wings on Friday, looking to prove that Thursday’s collapse was an outlier rather than a trend.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 27, 2025, where it first appeared.
