RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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CHICAGO -- Late on Sunday evening, Caitlin Clark curled toward the top of the key, took a handoff from Mercedes Russell and started to drive toward the middle of the floor. After two dribbles, she planted her right foot, went between her legs and stepped back to 25 feet. Sydney Taylor couldn't recover in time, and Clark's 3-pointer hit nothing but net.
The shot was the nail in the coffin on the Indiana Fever's 113-90 win over the Chicago Sky on a chaotic night at Wintrust Arena , and gave Clark a career-high eight 3s. She finished with 37 points, three rebounds and 10 assists in the second-highest scoring outing of her career and also recorded her fifth 30-point, 10-assist game. Every single other player in WNBA history combined has four such games.
"I think a mix of both," Clark said, when asked if her career night was a matter of generating good looks or just having a hot hand. As a team, the Fever shot 18 of 33 from 3-point range to set a new single-game franchise record. "I thought me and Kelsey did a really good job in the second half of playing split game and shallowing out of cuts, playing pitch and just putting them in a lot of actions where they had to pick and choose between the two of us and cause some confusion. Additionally, thought we played well in transition."
Sunday's game was the second of a back-to-back for the Fever and the end of a grueling road trip that saw the team travel back and forth across time zones as they played five games in eight days. They were coming off back-to-back defeats to the Dallas Wings and New York Liberty , and were without All-Star center Aliyah Boston , who was ruled out due to a leg injury. (Boston has been managing a leg issue all season, and is not expected to miss additional time.)
Clark knew she had to be aggressive and look to score more than usual.
"I think I just came in with the mentality of knowing that my team needs me to step up tonight," Clark said. "Obviously with AB going down, that hurts our team a little bit, so you gotta carry a little bit more of a load.
"I think it's all about your mentality coming into a back-to-back. You can either be like, 'I'm tired, we've been on the road. This that.' Or you can buck up and go play basketball and have fun. I feel like our team had great energy coming into this game and had a great mindset about how we wanted to approach it."
Eight from deep and a double-double for Caitlin 🔥 Clark poured in 37 PTS with 10 AST and a career-high 8 3PM to lead the Fever to the 113-90 win in Chicago! 37 PTS | 10 AST | 8 3PM | 3 REB #WNBASeason30 pic.twitter.com/ENeivHLkK9
It didn't take Clark long to get going. Less than a minute into the game, she already had a 3 and an assist. She finished the first quarter with eight points and four assists, but also five turnovers against a physical Sky defense. Clark settled down after that and did not have another turnover the rest of the night. The 3s, the points and the assists continued unabated.
Clark had 10 points in the second, 11 in the third and eight in the fourth. She had multiple assists in every quarter and multiple 3s in three of four quarters. She made 207 feet worth of 3s, including an absurd 35-foot step-back in the third quarter.
With the win, the Fever improved to 25-14, and set a new single-season wins record. They are percentage points behind the Atlanta Dream for the No. 4 seed and one game back of the Las Vegas Aces for third place with just one week until the league takes a multi-week break for the FIBA World Cup.
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