INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Fever coach Christie Sides slept through her team’s historic playoff-clinching moment Tuesday night. Rookie guard Caitlin Clark watched the decisive game, then went to bed.
For the WNBA’s top-drawing team, the end to a seven-year playoff drought on a night it didn’t play seemed a little, well, unceremonious.
On Wednesday morning, the Fever’s world changed. The team that endured seven straight losing seasons, had won only 30 games over the previous four years and started this season 1-8 was the toast of Indianapolis.
“I usually go to bed by 9:30, 10 o’clock every night, but I did set my alarm for midnight to wake up and I actually just turned it off. Didn’t even look,” Sides said. “So this morning, I woke up to some really awesome text messages.”
Losses by Chicago and Atlanta gave the Fever their first postseason berth since Tamika Catchings retired in 2016, even if Sides wanted just one of those teams to win so the Fever could clinch it on their home court in front of another near-capacity crowd.
Still, nobody was all that upset, and the fans still had plenty to celebrate Wednesday night when Indiana beat Los Angeles 93-86 behind a triple-double from Clark, who also became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 100 3-pointers in a season (she now has 102).
