The Indiana Fever are your Commissioner's Cup champions, and that could mean one very exciting thing for fans: a trip to the WNBA Finals. Over the last two seasons, the teams we got in the Cup Final ended up as the same matchup at the end of the season. Indiana will be hoping that trend remains true, while reversing another.
The Cup's losing team won the rematch in the championship, so that part will need some adjusting, and they stand a good chance of making that happen. The Fever took down the Lynx despite not having Caitlin Clark. If everything goes as planned, Clark will be back and ready to roll for the rest of the season very soon. She's day-to-day and was close to making her return against Minnesota.
If she gets back on the floor and she's healthy, the Fever can make a run. They've seemed to have worked through some of the struggles that led to some sputtering after a strong start to the season, as they've won three of their last four games.
The Fever are finding different ways to win
The mark of a good team is finding ways to victory when things aren't ideal. Some days it will be with defense, and other times the offense will need to pick up the slack, but as long as the effort never wavers, they have a shot. They've been showing that consistent fight, and it's leading them back to the right side of the ledger.
Natasha Howard will be critical to that. Her leadership has been imperative for this team, and she showed it on the court yesterday. It looked like the Lynx were going to blow the Fever's doors off in the first quarter. They were getting every shot they wanted, and it was falling; meanwhile, Indy was struggling with Minnesota's physicality, and when they did get open shots, they wouldn't fall. Until they did.
That started with Howard's effort and never-say-die attitude. She scored six points, grabbed four boards, dished out four assists, and added a steal to her stat sheet in the second quarter alone. Aliyah Boston had only scored two points in the entire first half, and Kelsey Mitchell also struggled, scoring eight points on 4/11 in the first two periods.
They needed their veteran to step up, and she did. While Boston and Sophie Cunningham got on track offensively in the second half, Howard kept up the pressure herself, adding another 10 points, and deservedly won the Commissioner's Cup Finals MVP award because of it.
Meanwhile, league MVP favorite Napheesa Collier and her almost equally dangerous teammate, Courtney Williams, couldn't get their offense going. The Fever wouldn't allow it. If they can play with that effort for the rest of the season, and if Caitlin Clark can get her offense back on track, this team can do something special at the end of the year.