The magical season of Caitlin Clark with the Indiana Fever continues, and she can check off another achievement in her rookie year. However, this one came without her even taking the court, as the Fever clinched a WNBA playoff berth on Tuesday night without even playing a game.
Thanks to a pair of outcomes—the Las Vegas Aces defeating the Chicago Sky and the Phoenix Mercury defeating the Atlanta Dream—the Fever are into the playoffs. It ends a seven-year playoff drought for the franchise that was tied for the longest in WNBA history.
Indiana began Tuesday sixth in the WNBA standings at 17-16, with the top eight teams qualifying for the postseason. Chicago and Atlanta both entered the day with 11-21 records and tied for the eighth and final playoff spot. Their losses to move them each to 11-22—and the fact that they will play each other on Sept. 17—mean that at least one of them will finish with at least 23 losses.
Even if Indiana loses all seven of its remaining games, it won’t have more than 23 defeats, and the Fever own tiebreakers over both teams thanks to better head-to-head records, thus Indiana can’t finish worse than eighth in the WNBA standings.
While seven of the eight playoff berths are locked up, with Chicago, Atlanta, and the Washington Mystics (10-23) battling for the final spot, Clark and Indiana could finish as high as the No. 3 seed.
Finishing in the top four would enable the Fever to have a home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, and playing at Gainbridge Fieldhouse certainly has been an advantage. Indiana leads the league in home attendance, averaging over 4,000 more fans than New York Liberty, which is in second place. The Fever is also 9-5 at home compared to 8-11 on the road.
Indiana missing the postseason for an eighth straight year seemed like a given based on how the season started. The Fever began the year 1-8 but have since gone 16-8 and are currently on a season-high-tying four-game win streak. They are just the second team in WNBA history to make the playoffs after starting a season 1-8 or worse, joining the Charlotte Sting in 2001.
Indiana would be happy to finish its season just as the Sting did theirs 23 years ago, as that 1-8 start didn’t keep the team from making the 2001 WNBA Finals, where they fell to the Los Angeles Sparks.
Clark has led this resurgence as she was one of two rookies named to the WNBA All-Star Game and leads the league in both assists and made three-pointers. She also ranks seventh in points and has logged the second-most minutes in the league.
She’s also someone who is familiar with postseason play as she made the last two NCAA Women’s National Championship Games while with the Iowa Hawkeyes. Indiana clinching a playoff berth is something that Clark says she expected when addressing the media prior to Wednesday’s game against the Sparks.
“Yeah, we made the playoffs. There’s six regular season games [after Wednesday]. I mean, I’m not just happy to be in the playoffs. I think we have the type of team that can win and advance, going one game at a time.”
The Fever went on to beat the Sparks 93-86.
While Clark wants to do more than just celebrate for making the playoffs, she’s also cognizant of the history of the Indiana Fever franchise and how this is a big achievement for her teammate, Kelsey Mitchell, who has endured nothing but losing seasons that didn’t end in the postseason during her seven years with the franchise.
“Yes, celebrate it, enjoy it. It is really huge for this organization, not having been to the playoffs since Tamika [Catchings] was here,” Clark said of the franchise’s all-time leader in points.
“So, it’s been a long time, and I think I’m definitely most happy for [Kelsey Mitchell]. Like Kels has been at this place for seven years and has never been to the playoffs. So, she definitely deserves this moment, and obviously, she’s been playing really good basketball too. So, she’s definitely helped us earn it.”
The last time Indiana made the playoffs in 2016, Clark was just starting her freshman year in high school. Indiana lost its one playoff game that year to the Mercury, as you have to go back to the prior season to find the last time the Fever won a postseason game. They advanced to the WNBA Finals in 2015, where they fell to the Minnesota Lynx in a fifth and deciding game.
The franchise has one WNBA championship, winning the 2012 WNBA Finals, in which Catchings was the Finals MVP.
