Fever's spot in Commissioner's Cup final adds to 'brutal stretch,' but it's a good problem to have

Indianapolis Star

4 hours ago

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White had a specific, and maybe slightly unusual, task for her assistant coaches on Tuesday night: track the score of the Atlanta Dream's game at New York.
Usually, coaching staffs don't take the time to worry about the scores around the league when they're coaching their own game. This time, though, it was different. Indiana needed help from New York in order to make it to the Commissioner's Cup final for the first time in franchise history.
'Yeah, our bench was tracking it,' White said to laughs from her players, Caitlin Clark and Natasha Howard, sitting beside her.
'I didn't even know that, so,' Clark responded.
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The Commissioner's Cup is the WNBA's in-season tournament, and pool play to get into the final wrapped up Tuesday night. For Indiana to make it to the Commissioner's Cup final (and compete for a half-million dollar prize pool), the Fever needed to win against Connecticut and New York needed to beat Atlanta.
Indiana, Atlanta and New York all came into the final day of pool play with just one loss. Atlanta held the head-to-head over Indiana, while Indiana held the head-to-head over New York. So, the Fever became Liberty fans for just one night.
The Liberty trailed by as much as 10 points Tuesday night but rallied back to beat Atlanta, 86-81. That gave New York a 4-1 record in pool play, while Atlanta had a 3-2 record. Indiana beat Connecticut, 88-71, around the same time, giving the Fever a 4-1 record in pool play and the berth to the Commissioner's Cup championship.
It, of course, came directly after a game that was filled with melees. The game had six technical fouls, three ejections and two flagrants, with most of it stemming from two separate dustups in the second half.
But the Fever aren't focused on that. They're hitting their stride, and they're headed to the Commissioner's Cup final for the first time in the five-year history of the in-season tournament.
'Obviously, we're excited. That's a big deal,' Clark said. 'And, you know, obviously New York helped us out a little bit to get there. And it's a hard thing to do, and why wouldn't we celebrate that we're getting to play for a pool of money, like, that's pretty fun, and you're competing to win a trophy. It's an extra game for us to get better as well. So obviously, we celebrated it, and we're proud of that.'
The Fever will play at Minnesota on July 1 for the Commissioner's Cup championship. The Lynx are the reigning Cup champions, beating New York for the title last year. The Fever have never made the Commissioner's Cup finals in the five-year history of the in-season tournament.
The two teams will play for a $500,000 prize pool that is split among the winning team, which comes out to about $45,000 per player. Every player in the Cup final will also get at least $5,000 in cryptocurrency from Coinbase.
This extra game, though, will come in a tough stretch for the Fever. Indiana is going on a road trip starting Thursday, playing at Golden State on June 19, Las Vegas on June 22 and Seattle on June 24. They then only have one day to travel back to Indianapolis and rest before a home-and-away back-to-back where they host Los Angeles on June 26 then travel to Dallas for a game on June 27.
If the Fever didn't have the Commissioner's Cup final, they would've had five days off before another game on July 3. But the finals come on July 1, continuing a grueling stretch for Indiana that will last until the All-Star break in mid-July.
'We're also preparing for a brutal stretch of, what … six (games) in 11 days where we go from the West Coast to come home and back-to-back, then back to Dallas," White said. "I mean, it's our job to manage those things, those two things. If we're not competing for the Commissioner's Cup, the minutes are different, right? If we are, it looks different. It's the game within the game.'