By FirstSportz,Joseph Varghese
Copyright yardbarker
When a team loses 5 of its best players to season-ending injuries, usually that would mean they would be gunning for one of the lottery picks. Not the Indiana Fever, who were battling the Atlanta Dream despite not having Caitlin Clark and 4 other important pieces in playing health.
Clark struggled with soft-tissue injuries, and finally ended any possibility of a return before even the team could finish the regular season. The other 4 were in no position, with a couple of them likely out for a year.
That left the franchise to field a team with 4 short-term contract players and one who did play for much of their regular season. Despite those shortcomings, those players had the same competitive drive that has become part of the Fever’s culture ever since Clark entered the building.
That fight to survive saw them win Game 2 after losing Game 1 under controversial circumstances. In that game, they displayed what it takes to win when all the odds were stacked against them.
They were facing the league’s 3rd-best team, which had a full roster at their disposal. Then they had to play the deciding Game 3 in Atlanta, where the passionate Indianapolis fans would not be present.
Despite those odds, the away team did not give up and continued to fight all the way to the end. A string of clutch plays later, away players booked the franchise’s first semifinal appearance in a decade.
