Indiana Fever coach Christie Sides criticized her team after they suffered a tough loss to the Connecticut Sun on Monday night, with Caitlin Clark scoring just 10 points.
“I’m going to start by saying that you can’t make a coaching effort at this level,” Sides said after the match. “I felt like we were just trying to ask them to keep playing hard, keep playing hard. You can’t start there. You can’t play in this league if you have to put in effort as a coach. It’s just too difficult.”
The game ended in an 89–72 win for the Sun, although at one point they led by as many as 28 points and the Fever looked at their best when Sides pulled most of her starters, including Clark, midway through the third quarter. switched off. .
“We were down 28 and I wanted to put a group in there that was going to go out and play some defense,” Sides said of her decision to remove her starters. “I’m really proud of the group that went out and took the lead. They played hard.”
In mitigation, the Sun own the best record in the WNBA (10-1) and the Fever (3-10) have had a brutal schedule to start the season. The Fever’s next two games are against teams with modest records, the Chicago Sky (4-6) and the Atlanta Dream (5-4). Clark described those two home games as “very winnable … for our group.”
The Fever lost to the Sun by just four points in their previous meeting, but were poor on both ends of the floor on Monday.
“This is a team you can’t be lax against; they are just so good,” said Clark, whose 10 points all came in the first half. “They’re going to punch you in the mouth. And I don’t think we had it from the jump, which is obviously a little bit disappointing.
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Aliyah Boston was the only bright spot for the Fever. The former No. 1 overall pick had 14 points and 12 rebounds.