As the season progresses I am starting to notice a very glaring hole in Indiana's strategy that they might not be able to fix: Their defense is pretty bad inside.
When they are playing against teams that are aggressive in the paint, they get scored on a lot, or commit a lot of fouls in the process of attempting to prevent being scored on.
Their latest match up against reigning champions New York Liberty showcased this flaw of theirs quite a lot, and without sacrificing a lot of power on offense, I really don't know what they can do.
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I'm going to be nice and say that it might not necessarily be Indiana's fault because how do you defend against a 6 foot 6, 215 pound mutant like Jonquel Jones? Well, her 26 points as a center would kind of indicate that it certainly isn't easy. Once again we saw Aliyah Boston stay very busy under the net and at 6'5" and 220 lbs herself, she certainly isn't small but I often do feel as though she is alone in there and opponents likely look for opportunities to pull her out of position since nobody else on the hardwood really stands a chance at stopping someone the size of the more aggressive centers in the WNBA.
Natasha Howard looks big, but she gets worked out of position by an opponent that weighs 50 lbs more than she does. The rest of the squad doesn't really stand a chance. Lexie Hull, who plays at the other forward position gets easily knocked back because she looks like a twig in comparison to a someone that is pushing 220 in the paint.
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Indiana toyed around a bit with putting in number 12, Damiris Dantas who brings some pack weight with her 215 lbs, but the tradeoff is severely limiting as she is nowhere near the offensive threat that Lexie Hull is because Lexie can pull up on quick jump shots as well as nail threes, which Lexie did twice in some very clutch moments towards the end of the game where things got really exciting.
The game was pretty one-sided for most of it, with New York getting as much as 15 points ahead but near the end of the 3rd quarter, Indiana outscored The Liberty 30-13. At that point Indiana was up by 8 going into the 4th quarter and they just had to hang on as far as defense was concerned in order to cruise to an upset victory.
They definitely did not hang on and it was a very disappointing 4th quarter for the once again, sold out home crowd in attendance. They watched in awe as the lead got brought down from nearly 12 ahead, then in a flash that lead went to 8, to 6, then finding the score tied in what looks like a one-possesion game. Indiana fouled on the next play and sent the Liberty to the free-throw line where they nailed both of them. On the next in-bound play they gave the ball to Caitlin Clark, who lost it as the clock ran out. There was a lot of internet chatter that CC was fouled and that the refs were being unfair, but I really don't think that was the case.
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There was a tiny bit of contact during this steal, but even though I am a Fever fan and am only watching this sport because of them, if you know anything about this sport you know that as a ref you cannot make a call because of contact after the steal that was very slight and incidental. You cannot decide the game on a "maybe" foul and I think that if the shoe was on the other foot, the Fever fans would understand this.
A lot of people are pointing to the fact that Indiana was called for a lot more fouls than NY was, but I think these same people are kind of ignoring the fact that Indiana needed to be more aggressive on defense because they are a smaller team and almost all of those fouls that I saw were very much deserved.
The deficit in points well, people should probably also look to the fact that the Fever turned the ball over 16 times and 10 of those times it was Caitlin Clark that did it. CC also went 3-11 of 3 pointers and you can't really ignore these numbers.
I thought the game was fair and that the last play of the game was NOT a foul nor should it be even contested that it might have been.
Indiana put on a good show but I really think that because of their defense being a bit small and therefore ineffective against any team with 2 big girls on the inside that we are going to see more games like this in the future. The only way they can combat this is to sub out someone for Damiris Dantas for someone smaller but this will make the offense suffer. I don't think there is a good answer for this unfortunately and fans of Indiana are just going to have to get used to seeing a lot of scoring against them in the paint. Aliyah Boston can only do so much!