Indiana Fever vs Atlanta Dream was exciting right until the end

As a new fan of the WNBA, like most people that are bothering to pay attention to it these days, I am kind of impressed with how entertaining these games actually are. I will admit that I don't go out of my way to watch every minute of any game and am only going to watch Indiana Fever games, largely because of Caitlin Clark. That is honestly, the only reason why almost anyone is watching WNBA, whether they want to admit it or not.

The first game of the season for the Fever was a barn-burner, seeing the Dream absolutely dominate the Chicago Sky. My takeaway from that game was that the Fever must be considerably better than other teams in the WNBA but that notion was all put to rest in the very first quarter of Indiana's second game of the season.

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It was once again a sold out crowd of about 17,000 in Indiana, and I can't help but feel like that makes the Atlanta players feel a bit bad because their stadium is just laughable. It only has seating for just over 3000 and well let's be honest here, that is probably twice as many seats as they have needed in the past decade. When Indiana travels down there tomorrow for the second game between the two teams, Atlanta is moving their game to a much larger stadium to accommodate the expected much larger crowd. Again, this must make the Atlanta team feel bad yet again, because the owners of the team knows that the home fans are only turning up because of the visiting team not because of the home team.

Getting back to the game in question: The very first quarter really put any enthusiasm about a potential Fever-domination of the league to rest. The crowd was relatively quiet as Atlanta jumped out to a 9 point lead by the end of the quarter. In basketball, and especially in the technical and rather slow game that is women's basketball, a 9 point deficit is pretty darn hard to overcome. However, Indiana kind of got their game together in the 2nd quarter and won back 6 of those points only to lose an additional 9 points in the 3rd quarter.

Going into the 4th down 11 points didn't look promising seeing as how Atlanta had been ahead on points the entire game.

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This time around the Vegas win probability chart seems a bit full of it and not so adjusting to how the game actually played out. Indiana was favored by 7.5 points and seeing as how the Fever was down by 9 at the end of the first quarter, that line should have been well up into the win probability for Atlanta.

There were some pretty terrible stats on Indiana's side in the first half, and it wasn't until the 4th quarter that they really started to do something special that has us newly-acquired fans like me watching in the first place. There was a ton of missed shots and even Caitlin Clark was missing shots to the point where I think most people had kind of temporarily lost faith in her ability to nail 3's. She went 5 for 11 of the day, which isn't terrible but I think most people have started to expect god-like accuracy from her.

Caitlin wasn't really the big problem here though. The major issue in this game that gave Atlanta the edge was the fact that Atlanta has some real weight under the basket in the form of Brionna Jones and the leagues most hated player (IMO) Brittney Griner. These two combined simply couldn't be stopped by Aliyah Boston and I think the Dream need to work on what they are going to do in the future against a team that has a lot of muscle in the paint.

I like Aliyah Boston, but there is only so much that one person can do. Despite the fact that I don't much care for her non-basketball-persona, there is no denying that Griner can seriously drive to the hoop in the paint. I don't know what Indiana (or other teams) can do about this because if they pull a second defender to go for the ball, Atlanta will simply run a route to that now open player. Basketball is a tricky game, that is for sure.

The most exciting part of this game was when it really came together for Indiana in the 4th and they rallied from 11 points down to nearly taking the lead in the final moments of the game. Ironically, it was Aliyah Boston at the free throw line that would have tied the game up. She was 6-6 on free throws up to that point and just one more would have potentially changed the entire outcome. She missed and Indiana failed to get the rebound as well.

With less than

10 seconds remaining, the Fever had possession and threw the ball in for a basket attempt in the paint by Natasha Howard who rightfully went for the shot for the win only to have it blocked, the follow up shot missed by an inch or so. What a heartbreaker to come back from 11 points down only to miss at two golden opportunities like that. I believe that Aliyah Boston will be beating herself up over missing that free throw until tomorrow, where she will have a chance to get her revenge.

If Indiana is going to have a chance to turn the 2nd game around, they need a serious rework of their play in the paint. Boston has one heck of a game, but that was too much to ask of anyone. That being said, Boston managed to pull down 24 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks. Credit where credit is due, right?

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For Caitlin Clark fans, despite her less-than-awesome performance she was still the top scorer in the game for either team, and set yet another record during it. Caitlin is now tied with Courtney Vandersloot for the top spot in number of games with at least 20 points and 10 assists. Wanna hear the crazy part? It took Vandersloot 430 games to achieve this. Clark has done it in 42.