How did the Sun fend off Caitlin Clark and the Fever’s offense in Game 1?

Yahoo Sports basketball analyst Isis “Ice” Young and women basketball writer Cassandra Negley break down the intense Game 1 matchup between the Connecticut Sun and the Indiana Fever, and highlight how the Sun’s dominant defense helped push them to victory.

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Video Transcript

Fever.

So we know that this was a battle between these two franchises all season long and the sun able to win on home court 93 to 69.

Alyssa Thomas, a triple double Marina maybe recorded the most points a player has ever had in the playoffs off the bench 27 points.

I mean, the sun just had everything clicking for them on Sunday and Kath, you were there to witness it all in person.

Yeah, I think the notable thing about that game, there’s so many notable things, but at practice the day before Stephanie White had talked about the Sun always rely on their defense, year in year out, one of the league’s best defenses.

They know that they can rely on that, but they had to match the fever.

They had to be good offensively.

They couldn’t miss easy buckets.

And I thought they did a really, really, really good job of that keeping up with the fever scoring and, and I think that’s what it is right.

You know, that the fever want to outscore you, they want to put up triple digits every single time and force you to do that.

But again, only scored 69 points.

Kaitlin Clark did not have maybe the playoff debut.

She thought she wanted to have only 11 points in that game and struggled to shoot.

But I think that was the defense of Dewana Bater guarding her and possibly that’s, that’s why we love playoffs because coaches get into their bag.

They start thinking and dreaming about these things.

And Stephanie White said, let me have Dewana Bonner, one of the longest perimeter defenders in the w guard, one of the best shooters.

And I thought that it worked cast any other game two adjustments that we may need to see from the fever for the fever.

I think they need to hit their shots because they did have good looks as Christie and Kaitlin said, and I think for Kaitlin, like, put her in a position early to hit an early three that is always what has gotten her going.

I think that’ll really fuel the offense, keep their pace going.

Obviously, defense play just a little bit tougher defense, but in those games that they’ve won against Connecticut and other times they’ve had just enough to be able to outscore the other team.

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