RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - AUGUST 11: Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever speaks to head coach Stephanie White of the Indiana Fever during the first half against the New York Liberty at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on August 11, 2026 in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images) | Getty Images
INDIANAPOLIS — The Fever are no strangers to outside noise.
Throughout the season, they’ve navigated those rocky waters elegantly . But even the best ships see their sails rip from time to time. As impenetrable as the Fever have been to everything around them, the noise broke through over the weekend and touched a nerve.
Publicly, Indiana head coach Stephanie White used her pregame press conference to offer a fiery defense of her character amid criticisms that she didn’t do enough to defend her player, Sophie Cunningham, after a hard foul in Saturday’s win over the Sky .
Privately, her superstar guard, Caitlin Clark, promised to have her back. Clark and the Fever stepped up in defense of her coach, first on the court as they downed the Liberty for their seventh win in nine games. Then, they took to the podium postgame and made their feelings on their head coach known.
“I talked to Steph earlier in the day, too, and I think we forget a lot of times, like, we’re human and she has feelings,” Clark said. “There’s moments that are really hard and sometimes that’s just the job you sign up for, but at the same time, it’s OK to feel those emotions and I just told her, like, I’ve been through the same thing. There’s been days where I’ve been really upset and you can have the thickest skin in the world, but sometimes it does get to you.
“I think our world is just, we love to hate, we love to divide,” Clark added. “Like, that’s all we want to do. Nobody wants to see each other succeed and I think that’s a really painful thing for myself to watch. I feel like we need to do a better job at uplifting each other. I can assure you there was no way we were losing this game tonight, and I told her that before the game. There was no way we were losing this game for her.”
However isolated the noise may have felt over the weekend, as it largely came from a vocal minority, it spilled over enough to lead to boos during pregame introductions when White was announced. Clark, who has ardently defended White this season, offered her strongest defense yet, calling out those fans who booed pregame.
“It’s tough,” Clark added. “That’s my head coach. I hated that our fans booed her before the game. That made me a little sick, to be honest. And you can disagree and this and that, and I get it. It’s professional sports. People are going to boo, but at the end of the day, that’s our head coach and we’re going to ride for her and we’re always going to have her back and it’s never going to tear our locker room apart.”
Clark was at the center of the team’s victory, finishing with 22 points and 10 assists in 35 minutes. Her backcourt mate, Kelsey Mitchell, continued her record-breaking run by scoring 28 points, giving her 17 straight games with at least 20 points.
Behind them, the Fever are surging. They’re now 11-4 in their last 15 games and are moving up the standings, now just a game back of the Aces in the No. 3 seed. For White, making the conversation about that and not anything else is her focus.
“Our league is the best in the world, the best athletes in the world,” White said. “They should be celebrated. We as women, in particular, continue to fight. We continue to try to represent the right things. I think we’re, as women and as a women’s league, sometimes we’re an easy target. Sometimes we’re an easy target.
“It’s unfortunate but we’ve got hundreds of years of precedent of a lot of different things that are happening in our world and in our country. We just want to try to keep the main thing the main thing and I think it’s important that we understand that we need to focus on this group and how they’re playing basketball right now because they’ve been playing incredible basketball. And so I’d like to stop talking about the other s—.”
"We really just did it for her. We did it for each other and the girls in our locker room." ❤️ pic.twitter.com/BqCbw8qUlc
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) August 12, 2026
White and Clark, in particular, have been linked together through much of the noise this season. When the pair got into a verbal argument during a game earlier this season, the story blew up.
Clark not only downplayed it at the time , but also spoke about her relationship with White. She revealed that, when she suffered her season-ending injury in the 2025 season, she “bawled in Steph’s arms.”
Clearly, those words only lasted so long before the ficklest of fans turned on White again, this time for an even more irrational reason. This time, Clark stepped up for her coach not only by helping lead the team to a win for her, but also making her feelings on her coach and her team crystal clear yet again.
“I just love her and I feel for her because I know it can be a lot of times,” Clark said. “She does a great job a lot of times blocking it out, but there’s other moments where it can get under your skin and that’s just being human and that’s just life. There are tough days and there are tough moments, but just proud of our group.
“I think we showed like what we’re all about tonight. We came out, we had fun, we shared the ball and we played with joy and a smile on our face. To be honest, we really just did it for her and we did it for each other and the girls in our locker room.”
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