Not two minutes into her playoff debut, Caitlin Clark was on the hardwood clutching her face thanks to an inadvertent poke in the eye. The Indiana Fever star’s first taste of the WNBA postseason was bitter, nothing like her team’s charmed run since the Olympic break, and the blow left her bruised. By game’s end, she was sporting a black eye.
Playoff dues must be paid by all; Clark, the most exceptional WNBA rookie in recent memory, is no exception. The Connecticut Sun’s stout defense stymied Clark as it pulled away in the second half for a 93-69 blowout victory in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series Sunday afternoon at Mohegan Sun Arena.
The sixth-seeded Fever face elimination in Game 2 on Wednesday night against the third-seeded Sun, needing a win to send the best-of-three series to Indianapolis.
Though Clark eventually picked herself up off the court after the early shot to the face, she never managed to get on track. The Sun opened with 6-foot-4 forward DeWanna Bonner covering Clark, a move aimed at using her size and length to frustrate the 6-foot rookie. Bonner’s attentive defense enabled Connecticut to single-cover Clark for most of the first half, limiting her driving opportunities and forcing Indiana to look elsewhere for offense.
With nothing coming easily and her outside shot rimming off, a frustrated Clark chased her losses to finish with 11 points on 4-for-17 shooting. Named the rookie of the year earlier in the day by the Associated Press, Clark missed her first eight three-pointers and finished 2 for 13 from beyond the arc. Kelsey Mitchell led Indiana with 21 points on 9-for-20 shooting, but Clark’s struggles kept the Fever from keeping pace when the Sun closed the first half with a 10-2 run and blew open the contest with a 25-12 fourth quarter.
“[Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington] got me pretty good in the eye,” Clark said. “I don’t think it affected me, honestly. I felt like I got good shots; they just didn’t go down. A tough time for that to happen. I had three pretty wide-open threes in the first half that you usually make, so that’s tough. I felt like I battled and tried my best and took care of the ball better than I usually do. … I felt like we just played a crappy game.”