Following Saturday’s 89-87 home loss to the Los Angeles Sparks, the Indiana Fever are now 9-9. Saturday’s loss came on the heels of three straight wins, including a Commissioner’s Cup title game win over the now WNBA-best (16-2) Minnesota Lynx and a blowout win over the A’ja Wilson-led Las Vegas Aces.
Of the Fever’s 18 games this season, reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year and 2024 No. 1 overall pick Caitlin Clark has only been available for half of them, and she wasn’t available for the fifth consecutive game. The team is now 5-4 with her and 4-5 without their dynamic guard this season. In fact, some believe the team has actually looked better without Clark, a ball-dominant guard who still gets her teammates involved as evidenced by her 8.9 assists per game. That’s good enough for second in the league behind Phoenix Mercury star Alyssa Thomas’s league-leading 9.4 dimes per contest.
WNBA Analyst Carolyn Peck Takes Viral Shot At Clark
During the Fever’s 81-54 blowout win over the Aces on Thursday, Peck, the first Black woman’s coach to win an NCAA Division I national championship while at Purdue in 1999, took a subtle swipe at Clark, who’s struggled this season.
“I think that Indiana is even more dangerous when Caitlin Clark doesn’t play, because she’s a ball-dominant guard,” she said. “The ball’s in her hands a lot, so you know what you need to try to take away. But when you look at Indiana now, they’ve got so many weapons.”
“When you have a point guard like Kelsey Mitchell, and Aari McDonald making plays on the perimeter, and a post like Aliyah Boston, I’m gonna tell you: Indiana, they are a threat. And it’s specifically on the defensive end,” Peck said.
In retrospect, Peck’s comments are nothing more than an overreaction. The gravity of how teams defend Clark cannot be overlooked or overstated. It opens up plenty of good looks for her teammates, and based on her assists totals she’s more than a willing passing despite her high being a high-volume shooter.
Fans Come For Peck’s Comments About Caitlin Clark
It didn’t take long for fans of Clark to come to her defense while also calling out Peck.
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy reposted the clip of Peck’s comments on X, writing, “I knew this was gonna happen.”
The popular sports commentary X account “BricksCenter” also shared the clip, writing, “Their hatred toward CC needs to be studied.”
“ESPN would be a lot more ‘dangerous’ without Carolyn Peck,” one user wrote.
Another user wrote, “All of Peck’s takes on CC last year ended being wrong and I don’t expect anything different from this season.”
Caitlin Clark Struggles This Season Are Real
It’s been an injury-plagued 2025 season thus far for Clark as she’s battles groin and quadriceps injuries all season. While, she’s averaging a respectable 18.2 points, 8.9 assists and 5.0 rebounds per game, her shooting splits have all dropped from her rookie season.
Her field goal percentage has slipped from 41.7 to 39.0, three-point shooting is down to 29.5 from 34.4 and she’s even dipped nearly ten percent at the free throw line from 90.6 to 81.6. Fever will need a better version of Clark if they wanna make a deep playoff run this season.
