INDIANAPOLIS — Another notable thing happened to the Indiana Fever Thursday morning: Nothing notable happened. They entered an empty arena for training. They stretched. They were filming some depositions. They moved to the other end of the floor and took a few more layups as “No Scrubs” echoed through Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The most caricatured and outgunned team in the league went about the unexciting business of continuing to be good at basketball.
People who casually consume the WNBA may not be aware of it. Da Fever is currently playing as one of the best teams in the league. That’s an understandable oversight. For too many days there have been too many fires to put out, too many absurdities to explain. An unbiased, carefree observer would assume that it is difficult to breathe when there is nothing but pollution in the air wherever the fever goes.
Instead, they are incredibly more than good.
What makes the Fever a team to play for?
One of the best groups in the Eastern Conference – a top-five club in the league – has actually looked like a viable championship threat over the past month. The Fever could end up with the highest offensive rating in WNBA history. The defense is now in charge, which only increases the pressure on the offense. Inside the funnel cloud, the Fever evolved and grew as a whole to put together a competitively compelling basketball season.
This is not meant as finger wagging. Who could be blamed for ruining this scene, really? The commotion is real and impossible to ignore. But a fever cannot be viewed in the same way that a train wreck can be viewed. What emerges is that they are watchable without being a train wreck in some way.
“I was just thinking about it while I was warming up outside — it’s fun to see how much fun my teammates have with each other,” Fever keeper Caitlin Clark said before Tuesday’s convincing win over the New York Liberty. “Because I feel like a lot of stories are sometimes the opposite of that. Obviously, I don’t expect people to understand. If you’re not in our locker room, how would you ever know?”
Unless someone commissioned an extensive psychological study, how the fever didn’t go mad might indeed be forever unknown.
From persistent early questions about the Clarks back injury to questions about how the team performed injury reports to a serious foul without a call alleged deposition death threats that technical errors that comments about transgender athletes to the second grave error and claims of “white privilege” to a home crowd booing their own coach just minutes later the coach made an impassioned statement defending his job and his relationship with the players… that was something. Every seam should be frayed by now.
But they didn’t, and yes, using the old “us vs. all” mind trick explains some of the reasons why.
“A year ago and this year, it’s like we’re fighting different demons, fighting different battles,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “But (it’s) the same character. Adversity reveals your character. This is a really special group, a really united group.”
However, there are more quantitative reasons worth investigating to explain how the fever broke out before the landslide. For example: the questions people have about Clark’s health lately can be quantified as zero.
Indiana’s franchise center fielded a total of 13 games in 2025 because of quadriceps, groin and ankle injuries. Played in 29 of a possible 33 in 2026. Logged at least 33 minutes in last six games.
“I feel like myself,” Clark said this week, and for a Fever, that’s a good feeling. As of Thursday morning, she was third in the league in scoring (21.7 points per game), first in assists (8.2 per game) and ninth in player efficiency rating (22.2). He is on the floor a lot and plays well. Indiana would probably be trending when that’s the case.
in just 82 games, Caitlin Clark recorded her 29th career double-double, third most by a guard in WNBA history 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/f7zvIC8ibr
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) August 12, 2026
With Clark at full fitness and backcourt mate Kelsey Mitchell at full strength — Mitchell is averaging 28 points at the point since July 1 — the Fever’s rating is 115. That would be the best in league history, eclipsing the standard set by the Washington Mystics (112.19) who in 12 years surpassed Lagandi Vegas (12. 2023. That’s a handful for every opponent up and down the standings.
“The ability to see how great the next person is floats in our locker room in a lot of positive ways,” Mitchell said. “I don’t think that’s a lie, and I think that’s why we’ve been successful at it.”
Mitchell ties WNBA single-season record with 15th consecutive 20-point game
Meanwhile, it can’t be said that the fever hasn’t played much of a role in the defense. What about anti-jamming walls? Boxing without lustful and venomous voices? The speed of recovery after controversies imposed on them by others, and occasionally by themselves? In this, the fever is elite. Without peer. The most tireless unit we’ve seen in the history of the game.
The actual defense never had to be so strong. It had to be adequate, especially in relation to a strong crime. And that balance has not been established well enough, often enough, until recently.
In these last nine games, the Fever have put 100 points on the board seven times while surrendering 100 or more just twice. They even had a chance to win a relatively low-scoring game against the defending champion Aces last week on their final possession.
“They do a good job of switching defensively and peeling on the drive,” Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said this week. “I feel like they’re always five-on-five on defense. A really tight-knit team. … The biggest thing in basketball is, when you get two on the ball, what happens next? And I think they do a great job of rotating for each other.”
While White can’t seem to satisfy anyone in the league’s smallest job, second-year forward Makayla Timpson has decided not to make the starting lineup to add size, athleticism and activity. In one drive against Liberty on Tuesday, the 6-foot-2 Timpson broke against two-time MVP Breanna Stewart, broke into a no-bite stance for a pump fake, stayed in front of Stewart as she drove left and interfered with the Liberty star’s missed shot.
Not a clip that would turn into a talk show segment. But there aren’t many players on the roster capable of what Timpson does, or her defensive end. And it is symbolic that the fever has found a foothold at that end, or at least a way to stop sliding.
“Since the beginning of the season,” said Fever center Aliyah Boston, “it’s been a drastic improvement.”
Coincidentally, that season began with a matchup against a team that revisited Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday. It will be the first time the Fever and Dallas Wings have seen each other since a May afternoon when the only crowd involved cheerleaders jostling for position along the fence, hoping against hope for an autograph from Caitlin Clark or Paige Bueckers, the big names leading the next era of WNBA basketball. Simpler times.
For one side, anyway.
It would be wonderful to believe that the universe will heed White’s call and decide to stop injecting craziness into the mix, allowing everyone to pay attention to the basketball her team is playing. It would also be hilariously naive. At some point, most likely, another wire will come loose. Fever are now too popular and too easy to use, which turned out to be the right combination.
But they play very good basketball. They believe they are a title contender, if not the finished product.
“I want to get it all,” Mitchell said.
And they have some normal days like Thursday, when seemingly nothing strange has happened and seemingly no one has said anything that the team will spend the next week answering for.
Everyone could appreciate that, even if not everyone can fully grasp the postseason threat Indiana is becoming.
Small steps though. One day without problems.
