Stephanie White Calls Out 'Soft', 'Sloppy' Fever Performance Against Dream
The Indiana Fever fell short against the Atlanta Dream on May 20, losing to them at home by a score of 91-90.
Given how fantastic the Fever looked during their 2025 WNBA season opener against the Chicago Sky, it became easy to forget that this is still a team that has a lot of moving pieces that will take time to mesh together. Not to mention that it's a new coaching staff that has had less than a month to instill principles and strategies into their entire team, given that training camp began on April 27.
In other words, Indiana (like every other team) still has a long way to go. And head coach Stephanie White conveyed where her team came up short when speaking with the media on May 21.
"We were soft on the defensive end of the floor," White said, per the Fever's YouTube account. "It felt like in live action, that we were just letting them do whatever they wanted, and it even looked more so like it on film. So I think our ability to, first and foremost, be in the right spot off the ball. Secondly, force them into tougher catches. They really moved the ball wherever they wanted to. We just didn't play with a level of physicality or intensity it takes to win in this league.
"And then offensively, we were sloppy," White added. "We didn't set good screens, we didn't wait on our screeners, we didn't move the ball, it got stuck... Our attention to detail on both ends was not there."
The Fever will get a chance to right these wrongs in a rematch against the Dream on Thursday.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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