3 keys for Indiana Fever to finish season in WNBA playoffs

INDIANAPOLIS — Starting Friday, the Indiana Fever have a 14-game sprint to the end of the 2024 regular season.

Sitting at 11–15, the Fever have a good chance at making the playoffs for the first time since 2016. They have a relatively easy schedule (and a lot of home games) to potentially make that goal a reality.

Here are three keys for the Fever to finish the season on a high note.

Indiana Fever schedule breakdown: How many more wins do Fever need to make playoffs?

Convert the winnable games

If the season ended today, the Fever would be the seventh seed in the WNBA playoffs. But they need to take care of the winnable games for a postseason trip.

Earlier this year, the Fever came off a win against league-leading New York only to lose against league-worst Washington. Then, Indiana dropped its final game before the break against Dallas, the team tied with the Mystics at the bottom of the league.

Indiana lost those games for a multitude of reasons: there were too many turnovers against Washington, and too little defense against Dallas. Either way, those were games the Fever should have won but fell short.

The Fever, looking at a relatively easy schedule with nine of their final 14 games at home, have a chunk of winnable games against the Mystics, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta (twice) and the Wings (twice).

If the Fever can convert on those games alone, they would hit 19 wins and have a great chance at making the playoffs.

They’ll just need to clean up their turnovers, take care of the ball and keep defense in mind .

Decide on a solid rotation

The Fever were in the midst of this when they hit the Olympic break, but the coaching staff has spent over half the season trying out new starting lineups and rotations throughout the season — possibly compromising camaraderie and comfort on the court.

In the final few games before the break, Indiana seemed to have it down with a starting lineup of Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston, Kelsey Mitchell, NaLyssa Smith and Katie Lou Samuelson. Lexie Hull went from DNPs to one of the first off the bench with solid rotation minutes, and Kristy Wallace went the opposite — from the starting lineup to multiple DNPs.

Guard Erica Wheeler has also seen her minutes dwindle over the course of the season, while forward Damiris Dantas, who was only activated in July because of a knee injury , has found herself getting rotation minutes.

Based on the games before the break, the Fever have been consistently using an eight-player rotation with their starters playing around 30 minutes, as well as Hull getting 15-20 minutes and Wheeler and Dantas getting 5-10 off the bench.

Those things could change, though, with three weeks of straight practice during the Olympic break and players breaking in new sets and rotations. The only player the Fever didn’t have in Indianapolis was Wallace, who won a bronze medal with Team Australia, but she had also been trending out of the rotation.

(Possibly) Integrate Temi Fagbenle back into the lineup

The Fever will have another wrinkle in their rotation when Temi Fagbenle returns from her thumb injury. Fagbenle was sidelined with the injury in early July, eventually transitioning into a hard cast just before the Olympic break.

While she has shedded the cast, the Fever are still being cautious with her hand.

“We’re close,” Fever coach Christie Sides said Tuesday. “We’re a lot closer than we were before the break. We don’t want to do anything that will set her back even more… just being very cautious.”

Fagbenle showed a lot of promise at the beginning of the season, creating a near-immediate bond with Clark. Fagbenle is a lengthy, athletic forward who is staunch on both offense and defense, and at times, the 31-year-old is exactly the veteran the Fever need. She was able to run the floor quickly in transition offense, grabbing Clark’s long-range passes for a quick layup ahead of any defenders.

Fagbenle had replaced Smith, who was a mainstay in the starting lineup, just six games into the season because of her stout defensive efforts.

But the injury bug has not been kind to the Great Britain native. She injured her foot on May 28 against the Los Angeles Sparks, keeping her out for a month. She returned against the Seattle Storm on June 27, but then injured her thumb in that same game. While she played through the injury for two more games, she was eventually shut down.

With those two injuries, Fagbenle has played just 11 of the Fever’s 26 games so far this season. Despite that, she has become an integral part of the Fever, and Indiana is missing her length and athleticism.

Follow IndyStar Fever Insider Chloe Peterson on X at @chloepeterson67.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 3 keys for Indiana Fever to finish season in WNBA playoffs