Caitlin Clark made up for a slow start against Cameron Brink and the Los Angeles Sparks to seal her first WNBA win on Friday night.
The No. 1 draft pick and Indiana struggled through their first five games and headed into the City of Stars after an 85-83 loss to the Seattle Storm on Wednesday.
However, they did not let their lead slip away as they took the 78-73 win over LA in a house of 19,103 spectators.
Clark only had five points before reaching into her arsenal of long-range shooting to put the nail in the coffin in the dying minutes. With 2:27 left in the game, Clark hit a 33’foot pull-up to give Indiana a six-point cushion.
About a minute later, Brink responded with a three-pointer of her own from 26 feet. But as the Sparks cut the deficit to two, Clark hit another three to put the Fever on cruise control.
Caitlin Clark hit two clutch three-pointer as the Indiana Fever secured their first win
Prior to Friday’s Fever-Sparks game, Clark’s former college rival, Angel Reese, appeared to take a dig at the former Iowa star on X following her Chicago Sky’s win over the New York Liberty in Brooklyn on Thursday.
‘And that’s on getting a WIN in a packed area not just cause of one player on our charter flight. #SKYTOWN,’ she wrote, with a blowing-a-kiss emoji at the end.
Clark has been credited with the surge of interest in the WNBA after being picked first by Indiana in April’s Draft – the same event where Reese was picked by Chicago.
The two were also big rivals at college, with Reese playing at LSU while Clark was at Iowa.
Reese and the Sky did not have charter flights at the start of the season, but Clark and Indiana did while dropping their first five games.
Speaking Thursday, Reese hit out at suggestions women’s basketball was surging off the back of Clark alone.
‘It’s not just one person, I think people don’t realize that [because] the narrative out there is that just one person changing the game,’ she said.
‘It’s a lot of us. There’s so many great players and it’s been long overdue and just being able to see that our impact has been able to change the game.
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