Fever top Atlanta 83-80 in preseason finale

Caitlin Clark scored 12 points in her home debut as Indiana wrapped up the preseason Thursday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

INDIANAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark’s home debut in Indianapolis was a winner.

The Indiana Fever defeated the Atlanta Dream 83-80 Thursday in the team’s lone home preseason game.

NaLyssa Smith scored 21 points, while Caitlin Clark added 12, and Aliyah Boston and Katie Lou Samuelson had 11 each in the Fever’s last tune-up before the regular season. Clark tallied eight rebounds and six assists in her first game in front of the hometown crowd.

“It was a lot of fun, I thought they were loud, I thought they were into it. It was fun to see,” Clark said following her home debut. “This is a preseason game on a Thursday night and there’s 13,000 people here. I think that just shows you what it’s going to be like for us all season. It’s going to help us.”

Credit: AP/Darron Cummings
Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark is guarded by Atlanta Dream’s Naz Hillmon during the WNBA preseason basketball game Thursday, May 9, 2024.

The Dream challenged the league’s No. 1 overall draft pick with hard closeouts, defenders forcing the ball out of her hands and a physical style to get Clark off her spot.

The result: Clark missed her first two shots and her first four from 3-point range and her new teammates struggled to take advantage of her crisp passes into the paint, putting the Fever in an early 18-8 deficit.

But Clark helped rally the Fever from an early double-digit deficit and when she knocked down the long 3 with 2:17 left in the third, Indiana led 68-60.

“I don’t think I was that effective, honestly,” Clark said. “I thought more than anything I did a really good job of passing the ball, finding my teammates. Obviously, I would have liked to have made a couple more 3s, but sometimes that’s how you shoot it.”

Atlanta had a chance to tie the game coming off a timeout with 19 seconds remaining, but the Fever tightened up the defense, forcing a shot clock violation to seal the win.

Indiana travels to Connecticut to open the season on Tuesday, May 14, then returns to Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the regular season home opener on Thursday, May 16. That game can be viewed for free on WTHR.

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Fever on WTHR and WALV

As the Local TV Home of the Indiana Fever, WTHR/WALV will broadcast 17 Fever games during the upcoming season.

The broadcast schedule will include the home opener against the New York Liberty on Thursday, May 16.

Ten of the games will be shown for free over the air on WTHR, and seven of the games will be on WALV, which carries MeTV programming and is on Channel 13.3 and 46.1.