Fever have found success, say consistency is paramount over final third of the season

The Indiana Fever are in a nice groove, winners in four of their last five games, and nine of 12 since the start of July. They have had injuries, players shuffling in and out of uniform — oh, and a new coaching staff with a similar mentality but few different items stressed than the previous regime.

The latest example of the changeover, led by head coach Stephanie White, came Friday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse with the tumbling Atlanta Dream (7-14) in town.

The Fever (12-9) scored 59 of their 106 points, the second-highest scoring total in franchise regular-season history, in the final two frames to easily roll past the Dream and bounce back nicely from a poor loss Tuesday night in Chicago.

That night night they were thumped 106-82 by a Sky team that attacked harder and efficient scored the ball.

Friday night in their 106-77 victory, Indiana’s staple defense piled up 27 points off of 26 Atlanta turnovers.

Offensively, the Fever were the aggressors forcing 30 Dream fouls and resulting in countless trips to the foul stripe. They were deadly-accurate with the freebies, knocking down 40-of-44; both numbers are franchise records.

“(That’s) attack mode,” said longtime starter Briann January, one of five Fever players who finished in double figures with 10 points. “That was a point of emphasis. When we were in Chicago, we didn’t have that attack mentality and I thought we really brought it tonight, and we capitalized off of those fouls. We made our free throws and that was the difference in the game.”

In the couple of practices following that loss, creating plays and attacking the rim was singled out and emphatically emphasized. Knowing the Dream are a foul-heavy team, assistant coach Gail Goestenkors even checked in on the Fever’s season-high free throw numbers earlier in the week.

“I think it speaks to our aggressive mentality,” coach White said of franchise-best 40 makes on 44 attempts. “It speaks to us being able to create offense from our defense, be able to play in transition because of the way we were defending.”

From an offensive standpoint, they want to run and score in a hurry. Now, that doesn’t mean being careless with the ball and shooting a contested shot. But, one of the changes made entering this season was an emphasis in getting up the floor and finding an seam to pounce. They strive to get a quality shot off — an open one or in the lane — six to eight seconds into the 24-second shot clock. That leads to more opportunities and in turn, hopefully more points.

“We see her vision,” January added, “and we’re making steps towards making that a reality.”

One odd situation the team has dealt with this year is rookie Natalie Achonwa coming and going from Indianapolis. Literally. She’s competing with the Canadian National Team in the FIBA Americas Championship and aims to rejoin the Fever Aug. 18 in Los Angeles. Last year she rehabbed an ACL injury and this is his second time gone with her National Team.

That’s where the Fever being a veteran-led team group has been important. Through it all, they don’t believe like they haven’t skipped a beat.

With Friday’s win, their second straight this season over the Dream, the Fever remain in fourth in the Eastern Conference standings — which is still good for a playoff spot. They are just a half-game back from Washington in third, and two and half back from New York, who they recently disposed of by 12 points.

Over the final third of the season, the team wants to find some consistency; consistency practice-to-practice and game-to game.

“We’re up and down and I want us to be consistent,” said White. “Consistent throughout a 40-minute game, we’ve been better. We have shortened our lapses throughout the 40-minute game, and then our consistency form game to game. We can’t have games where we go out and lay an egg and then games where we come out and play great.”

More to that, Jeanette Pohlen believes they are also still trying to find what drives the team. In spurts, they play focused basketball. Then, at other times, they take plays off and can be a little lazy.

“We’re just trying to find what will motivate us, what will drive us so that we can peak at the right time,” she said.

That message and that consistency will be especially key on the road, where the Fever play eight of their final 13 games, including the next four. Playing at home, as they did on Friday, has been a delight. Seven wins and counting…

“We have raised the bar,” said Catchings, who continues to elevate her name in the records books. She was efficient in her 24 minutes on the floor with 18 points, six rebounds, and three steals.

“The bar is really high for us and when you look at the potential of this team, we haven’t even reached how good we can be. Players (have been) in and out; we’ve yet to have a full roster, and then the one game we did, Layshia (Clarendon) got hurt. We’ve never had the full team [together] to see how good this team can be.

“If we make a run in this last third of the season and keep climbing up that mountin, we’ll peak at the right now.”

Breast Health Awareness Night a Success, Too

There are a lot of gimmicky promotions in sports at all levels. We see it all the time. But one of the more meaningful nights was Friday night at the Fieldhouse as breast heath awareness was spread and those who have beat it were celebrated.

This night particularly hits home for three Fever players: Pohlen, January, and Shavonte Zellous.

Pohlen’s mother, Cindy, was diagnosed with breast cancer when Jeanette was a junior in high school in California. Cindy went through chemotherapy, beat it, and was one of the success stories.

“For me, it’s special because obviously my mom plays such a huge role in my life,” Pohlen said of the events surrounding the game. “To be able to raise awareness for breast cancer and breast health so that we’re getting the word out to young girls and people who need to get their checkups.”

The Fever wore pink uniforms, had pink socks with black and white stripes, and the franchise encouraged fans to wear pink to the game. Even the graphics on the giant video board were in pink.

Pohlen, who had pink in her hair and on her nails, says a prayer before every game, but tonight especially she “gave it up” to her mother before the game.

“Tonight I was definitely playing for more than the game,” she continued. “It was for my mom. She’s definitely one of the toughest people I know, and one of the sweetest, nicest people I know. For everything that she’s gone through, she’s always just positive and giving so much support to everyone else.”

Following the 106-77 win, fans stayed behind for the annual action. Catchings’ uniform and other gear went for $3,900. In all, nearly $23,000 was raised for the Oncology Patient Assistance Fund.