Caitlin Clark: Fever focused on playoffs after blowout loss to Lynx

MINNEAPOLIS -- Forty-eight hours after the Indiana Fever cruised past the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx for one of their best wins of the season, the Fever had one of their worst defeats in one of their most consequential games of the season.

In the regular-season finale, Indiana suffered an 86-66 loss to the Lynx in a game that wasn't as close as the final score indicated. The Fever trailed by 30 points at halftime and 36 in the third quarter before head coach Stephanie White pulled her starters. Four-time All-Star Aliyah Boston aggravated a lower leg injury and didn't return, and reserve Tyasha Harris had to be carried off the court because of a left ankle injury.

The Fever fell to the No. 6 seed for the third consecutive season and will be on the road to open the playoffs against the No. 3-seeded Las Vegas Aces on Sunday. Indiana lost two of three to end the regular season, including a 93-77 defeat to the Mystics, after winning eight of 10.

The Lynx will host the New York Liberty in a rematch of the 2024 WNBA Finals on Sunday.

White said after the game that Boston experienced a flare-up in her knee and didn't play in the second half for precautionary reasons. White called Harris' injury an awkward fall but didn't have an update on her status.

Caitlin Clark was held to a career-low two points on 1-for-12 shooting. Kelsey Mitchell's league record of 27 consecutive games with at least 20 points ended as she finished with 10 points on 3-for-12 shooting.

"At this point, everybody's record is 0-0," Clark said. "We're going into the playoffs. If we sit and sulk about what happened tonight, yeah, it sucks. It is what it is. We kind of came out and got punched in the mouth. We didn't make shots, obviously.

"I'm excited. If you can't get up for the playoffs, then you probably shouldn't be on this team. That's the great thing. You look at one through eight in this league right now, [and] it's anybody's to take. We have to have the mentality going into the playoffs of let's go steal the first one."

Though the Fever were talking about moving on from a disappointing effort, the Lynx had already done so. Coach Cheryl Reeve benched her starters Tuesday when the Lynx trailed by 23 points at halftime against the Fever.

The lack of energy and execution that plagued the team in Indianapolis was gone Thursday, as the Lynx jumped out to a 25-4 lead and never looked back. Kayla McBride, who was held scoreless Tuesday, hit six 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 22 points. Natasha Howard added 21.

"I was just really proud of how we bounced back," McBride said. "Like, it's not easy. Social media, we see everything. Everything that you guys post, Twitter, blah blah blah. I turned it off because everybody's talking about we're 1-4 in the last game[s] and da da da da. We got benched. All this stuff. It's like noise.

"And it's everybody, and it's natural, right? But there's nothing anybody can do or say when we're between those four lines. And I felt like we just came out and we did that."

The Fever went 2-1 against the Aces during the regular season and will travel from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. Though Clark was excited about the playoffs, the team hoped for a higher seed during the season and had spoken about the importance of home-court advantage after losing Game 5 on the road to the Aces in the semifinals last season.

Defense continues to be Indiana's biggest weakness. The Fever are 11th in points allowed per game but have the No. 1 offense in the league.

"This is playoff basketball," White said. "The physicality, the intensity level, the level of focus. ... I don't believe we shoot like that very often. We just have to not let that affect us on the other end. ... It's 0-0, and we're still playing basketball, and so we flush this one. We learn from it, we grow from it, and we start our prep for whoever we're playing tomorrow."