Fever coach Stephanie White reveals how Caitlin Clark injury changes Indiana

Fever coach Stephanie White must manage an Indiana team without an injured Caitlin Clark for the next two weeks.

The Indiana Fever can’t just hit pause on their season while their star guard Caitlin Clark recovers from a left quad injury, so head coach Stephanie White has to figure out how to keep Indiana competitive without her.

The Fever are 2-2 on the young season but their two losses have come by a combined three points. Thankfully for Indiana, its next three games are against the Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun, teams that are a combined 2-7 so far. As White explained, the plan against them won’t be radically different than what it is with Clark on the floor.

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I don’t think we change how we play, I think we change what our emphasis is,” she told the media on Monday. “Our off-ball actions as opposed to some of our on-ball actions when we get to our on-ball actions, utilizing our personnel in a different way.”

She used Aliyah Boston as an example. Without Clark, one of the best facilitators in the game, Boston might not get the ball in the pick-and-roll as much. But Boston is a star herself, scoring 18.5 points per game and pulling down 10.6 rebounds. She will have her opportunities, and White said to expect her to get open more on off-ball screens.“A lot of times with [Clark] and the ball in her hands, our shots are coming above the break,” White continued. “Now we might get the ball moving end-line to end-line when we’re moving it side-to-side, so I don’t think it changes how we play. I think it just changes the emphasis on the actions that we get to.”

During her time with the media, White also clarified that Clark’s injury is not the same one that kept her out of a preseason game against the Mystics. While she doesn’t know exactly when she suffered this injury, Clark reported pain in her leg after the team lost to the New York Liberty over the weekend. An MRI revealed Clark’s quad strain.