Stephanie White Gets Clear on What Fever Must Do for Game 3 Playoff Win vs Dream
It's now do-or-die time for the Indiana Fever, as they're less than two hours away from their winner-take-all game against the Atlanta Dream, which is taking place on the Dream's home court.
It's hard to imagine that Game 2 on September 16 of this first-round WNBA playoffs series could have fared any better for Indiana. Not only was the home crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse Arena rocking all game long, but the Fever got great individual performances from star players like Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston; they played elite, cohesive basketball as a unit, and the Dream players didn't perform up to their standards.
All of that contributed to a relatively easy 77-60 win. However, there's little doubt that Thursday's game is going to look much different than Tuesday's contest. Look no further than Game 1 and Game 2 being completely unique as proof of that.
One would imagine that Atlanta is eager to put on a show in front of their home crowd. And the law of averages would suggest that they're going to shoot better than 37.9% from the field and 26.3% from three-point range, which is what the Dream did in Game 2.
Stephanie White Sends Clear Message on What Fever Must Do for Game 3 WNBA Playoff Win
All of this is to say that the Fever will have their work cut out for them if they're to produce an upset against Atlanta and advance to the WNBA Semifinals. Head coach Stephanie White got brutally honest about what this team must do in order to win on Thursday, which was included in a September 18 article from Scott Agness of the Fieldhouse Files.
“For us, it's just embracing the moment,” White said in the article. “We know that, again, it's a back-against-the-wall game for us so we had really good energy in shoot around, and attention to detail.
“It's got to be our best-executed 40 minutes yet," she continued.
When speaking more strategically, White added, "We got to make shots. We're gonna be in position where we've got to force the defense to work multiple sides of the floor. We got to step up and knock down open shots.
Inside Fever shootaround: 'It's got to be our best-executed 40 minutes yet'
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) September 18, 2025
Story + video: https://t.co/ql1fVzZB3r pic.twitter.com/tlgKON4W1u
“[Atlanta does] a really good job of coming into defenders and throwing fouls. They're really good at that. We have to make sure that we stay disciplined and we don't become susceptible to trying to come down and block shots," she continued.
“We've got to be aggressive,” White said. “We can't be hesitant. We've got to let the ball find the right shot. It's got to be moving side to side. We've got to be willing to get to the third and fourth actions. That's oftentimes when we're getting our looks. We've got to be consistent.
"We still haven't put together a 40-minute consistent game in the series — and we’ve got to.”
Time will tell whether Indiana can rise to the occasion or whether their 2025 season will end this evening.
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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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