How a road rally in mid-August catapulted the Fever to the WNBA semifinals

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Alexa PhilippouSep 26, 2025, 08:30 AM ET
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- Covers women's assemblage hoops and the WNBA
- Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford postgraduate and Baltimore autochthonal with further acquisition astatine the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Fever sat successful the locker country astatine Mohegan Sun Arena facing a large problem. It was Aug. 17, and they trailed the last-place Connecticut Sun by 19 points. Two games supra .500 with 3 weeks remaining successful the regular season, each crippled mattered successful Indiana's quest to clinch a playoff spot.

But the hits kept coming. Ten days earlier, the Fever mislaid constituent guards Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald to season-ending injuries in the aforesaid game. Caitlin Clark had been retired for a period and inactive had nary timetable to return. And that precise afternoon, successful the 2nd quarter, defender Sophie Cunningham suffered what looked to beryllium a superior genu injury.

Fever manager Stephanie White presented a elemental situation to her players successful the locker room. When things get tough, she said, radical usually respond 1 of 2 ways: combat oregon flight. The Fever? They're fighters, she told them. They combat for 1 different each play, each day.

That's precisely what Indiana did successful the 2nd half, erasing a 21-point shortage to prevail 99-93 successful overtime, the largest comeback successful franchise history.

The crippled would beryllium to beryllium a turning constituent for Indiana's season.

"No substance the circumstance, we showed up and we recovered it," White said this week astir the Connecticut game. "And I deliberation astatine that moment, you could truly recognize however peculiar this radical was."

The resilience and content the Fever tapped into that day helped them scope the franchise's archetypal WNBA semifinal quality since 2015 and stay steadfast arsenic their bid (1-1) shifts to Indianapolis for Game 3 connected Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Never caput that the Fever are the No. 6 seed. That they are without Clark and 5 different injured players. That they had to past 2 elimination games versus the No. 3 effect successful the archetypal round. Or that they are present facing the Las Vegas Aces, winners of 2 of the past 3 WNBA titles.

"They've got thing wrong them you conscionable can't teach," White said aft the Sun game, holding backmost tears successful her postgame quality conference. "It allows america to spell done these incredibly pugnacious times that we're going done and ever gives america a chance."

The Fever entered that August day astatine Connecticut connected a two-game skid aft dropping back-to-back location games to what ended up being lottery teams. The Sun had lone six wins astatine that constituent but had started to crook a country successful the 2nd fractional of the season. Connecticut jumped up 24-11 astatine the extremity of the archetypal quarter.

"They punched america successful the face," Fever starring scorer Kelsey Mitchell, who scored 4 points successful that archetypal half, said this week. "You instrumentality the crippled for granted, and a bully squad successful Connecticut -- who was connected insubstantial not truly bully -- they situation you."

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