White's response to "silly" Caitlin Clark minutes comment is what you'd expect

Saturday's rematch against the undefeated New York Liberty marked the return of power guard Caitlin Clark. It's clear by her performance that she is feeling back to form, and it even provided fans with a sense of relief. She put up 32 points to help lead the Fever over the Liberty 102-88.

It was unclear just how Clark would play and what her exact role was going to be after being fully cleared to compete as of Friday. Not having a full week of practice in before Saturday left fans uncertain if she'd even be back. The earliest she could have returned to competition would have been Tuesday against Atlanta, however, head coach Stephanie White made it very clear they were being extremely cautious with Clark.

In fact, when the possibility of playing with restrictions in her first game was brought up in the Fever's pregame presser, Clark had a subtle, yet direct response. She did not anticipate having any sort of restrictions when she came back.

"I'm not a huge fan of minute restrictions. I think that's silly," Clark said.

"Why would I be out there to play 20 minutes? I'm out there to win and give everything I have for this team," she added.

Everyone by now is fully aware of Clark's competitive nature. After all, she is the facilitator for the Fever's entire offense. During her three-week absence, there was an obvious decline in offensive production as a team. Coaching on the sidelines was beneficial for her to see the game from a different angle, but she was clear that she was ready to go all out for her team.

Stephanie White must have plan to manage Caitlin Clark in the rotation

It didn't take long for the media to approach head coach Stephanie White about Clark's response to her playing time in her return. Needless to say, White was not surprised at all by it and even laughed about it.

"Of course she did," White said in response to Clark.

Coach White did go on to say that any decision made regarding Clark would come from the training staff - which did ultimately give an adamant "no" to whether or not a minutes restriction would be necessary. And rightfully so, Clark played a total of 31 minutes Saturday, but fatigue did set in. Although Clark would not have strict rules in terms of how many total minutes she plays, Coach White did express concern with her playing for too long of stints.

"We don't want emotional or physical fatigue early in the ball game, so just gauging that by how she feels and how she looks and then for us continuing to build our positive progress," she added.

In a post game interview with ESPN, Clark expressed appreciation that Coach White gave her some breathers in that game. Just last week in practice White made a strong point that feeling good isn't enough and would continue to tread cautiously with Clark.

She explained that there is a significant difference between practice reps and playing in live game situations. The pace will take some getting used to again, but make no mistake about it - Caitlin Clark's quick spark made it clear that she is back and ready to help make her team better.