Shorthanded Fever Answer Important Question With Statement Win Over Storm
The Indiana Fever took a massive step towards the postseason on Tuesday night, defeating the Seattle Storm 95-75 in front of a home crowd.
To put it plainly, it was a dominant showing. The Fever led by as many as 32, shot over 50% as a team, and had three different players reach the 20-point mark. In a more literal sense, they also asserted their dominance physically, doubling the Storm on the glass and racking up 52 points in the paint.
"It's giving sweep."
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) August 27, 2025
walk off with the squad after a 20-point win over the Storm 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/8mGUDkLEsm
"Every game at this point of the season is huge, and this was a big one for us," head coach Stephanie White admitted postgame. "I felt like this was as close to 40 minutes as we've put together consistently in a long time. We didn't have lulls or let-downs."
Star center Aliyah Boston led the way with a game-high 27 points, while Odyssey Sims and Kelsey Mitchell followed closely behind with 22 and 21, respectively.
Thanks to an eight-point victory from the Phoenix Mercury, Indiana now holds a two-game cushion on the ninth-place Los Angeles Sparks. With just six games left on their regular-season slate, the Fever have an 96.2% chance of making the playoffs, according to ESPN's WNBA Power Index.
It was a pivotal win, and frankly, one they needed to quiet concerns about falling below the postseason cutline.
As Indiana's injury woes refused to withdraw, it was only fair to question whether this Fever squad, as presently constituted, could truly stack up against the playoff field. Tuesday's 20-point triumph delivered a resounding yes.
The Fever showed OUT for CC night
— Clark Report (@CClarkReport) August 27, 2025
They dominate the Storm 95-75 in a crucial win for the playoff race pic.twitter.com/G0JxfbJp2O
Fever Can Still Hang in Spite of Mounting Injuries
To call the Fever injury-plagued is perhaps putting it mildly at this point.
While star point guard Caitlin Clark has endured three separate injury stints -- the latest dragging on for well over a month -- it's Indiana's once-heralded depth that has fallen prey in recent weeks.
It's most glaring in the backcourt, where three season-ending injuries have left the Fever scrambling for replacements. In an August 7 game against Phoenix, Indiana lost Aari McDonald to a broken foot and Sydney Colson to a torn ACL. Ten days later, versatile guard Sophie Cunningham suffered a torn MCL against the Connecticut Sun.
In the frontcourt, a knee issue has made Chloe Bibby the latest addition to the injury report, leaving the midseason acquisition without a timetable for return.
Needless to say, it's not conducive to putting a winning product out on the court
Indiana lost by 35 on the night McDonald and Colson were sidelined, beginning a stretch in which the Fever won just two of their next seven games.
The only wins came against Connecticut and the Chicago Sky, two teams well outside the playoff picture. Even still, the Fever needed a career-high 38 points from Mitchell to erase a 21-point deficit and eke out a six-point win over the Sun in overtime.
Meanwhile, losses to the 11th-place Dallas Wings and 10th-place Washington Mystics painted a picture of a team struggling to hold its own -- and that was before injuries to Cunningham and Bibby.
With one three-game stretch, however, Indiana has managed to shift the narrative.
Four days of rest separated the overtime win over Connecticut from a home-and-home against the league-leading Minnesota Lynx. The schedule worked against Minnesota, who traveled to Indiana for their third road game in four days. But with five regular rotation players sidelined for the Fever, back-to-back losses seemed imminent.
While that final result would prove correct, Indiana managed two highly competitive efforts. At halftime of both contests, only two points separated the squads, with the Fever holding a lead in Friday's affair.
Then again, Indiana didn't have enough to take it the distance, falling 95-90 on Friday and 94-87 in Sunday's matchup. Had Tuesday's tilt against Seattle gone the other way, it might be easy to disregard the two single-digit losses against the Lynx as nothing more than a blip on the radar amid an unremarkable stretch.
The Fever actually played the Lynx very tough. Those losses probably shouldn't have been spun negatively.
— Robin Lundberg (@robinlundberg) August 26, 2025
Instead, a 20-point physical victory just two days later shines a different light on this past weekend, one that displays a severely shorthanded Fever squad staying within striking distance of the best team in the WNBA -- not once but twice.
Following that up with a resounding win in a game with massive playoff implications shouldn't be overlooked.
To be clear, Seattle is nowhere near the level of Minnesota, as evidenced by their recent play. The Storm rode into Tuesday's matchup on a three-game winning streak, but all three wins came against teams below them in the standings, not to mention the 2-8 stretch that preceded it.
And while exciting size in the form of Nneka Ogwumike, Ezi Magbegor, and Dominique Malonga certainly catches the eye, Seattle ranks dead last in the WNBA in rebounding and opposing points inside the paint. Within that context, Indiana's physical success on Tuesday becomes more understandable.
How the Fever got 42 rebounds and the Storm get 21 with Malonga, Ezi, and Nneka? 🤯
— Rosalina Lee (@YoitsRosie) August 27, 2025
Nonetheless, it’s an encouraging sign for the Fever, and a clear improvement from the uneven product that's been on display for much of August. A decisive win over a playoff-caliber team, albeit a lower-tier one in Seattle, is a step in the right direction for an injury-riddled Fever squad.
Veteran point guards Shey Peddy and Sims have exceeded expectations on their 7-day hardship contracts thus far, providing an extra jolt to a depleted bench. It's unlikely Indiana will find anyone to replicate the production of pieces like Cunningham and McDonald, but Sims and Peddy appear to be capable replacements in their stead.
More challenges await Indiana over the next few weeks, starting with a three-game West Coast trip against three teams still in the hunt. This group has been up to the task lately, and that bodes well for any playoff hopes. The less their success hinges on a healthy Clark returning to dominance, the better.
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Lou Orlando is a Fordham University alum, graduating with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism. At Rose Hill, he covered women's basketball for the university newspaper, the Fordham Ram. In addition to calling games on 90.7 FM. The Brooklyn native enjoys bagels and thinking about random early-2010s athletes, that is when he isn't penning stories for Women's Fastbreak and Indiana Fever On SI.
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