NEW YORK \u2014 Caitlin Clark was excited to get back on the court Saturday and play in a\u00a0WNBA game, even if it was just the pre-season.<\/p>\n
Indiana’s star played in her first game for\u00a0the Fever\u00a0in nine months after injuries derailed her second season, limiting her to 13 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn’t a real game, I understand that, but that’s how we treat it like a real game,” Clark said before the Fever faced the New York Liberty. \u201cI think anytime you get to put on your uniform and lace up your shoes you don\u2019t take that for granted, especially after coming off last year when I didn’t get to do that very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said she had some nerves and only expected to play about 20-25 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet out there, run around, you know, it\u2019s going to be a little sloppy for both teams,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of what pre-season games are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fever coach Stephanie White noticed a difference in Clark this pre-season as opposed to her first two in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the thing, watching her play with joy,” White said. \u201cIn practice her energy is different, carrying herself in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n
This wasn’t Clark’s\u00a0first basketball game\u00a0since suffering a season-ending injury last July. She played for USA Basketball in a World Cup qualifying tournament last month and earned Most Valuable Player honours.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was itchy and antsy before training camp started,\u201d said White, who coached her in USA Basketball as well. \u201cGlad she had those games with USA Basketball and came into training camp having played. Now it’s fine tuning.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Clark played, a few of the Fever’s others didn’t. Aliyah Boston was out while still recovering from a lower-leg injury. Lexie Hull is also working her way through a hamstring issue.<\/p>\n
White said both would have played if it was a regular-season game.<\/p>\n
The Fever were also without Ty Harris (knee) and Damiris Dantas, who is not with the team yet.<\/p>\n
New York was missing Rebecca Allen, Marine Fauthoux and Satou Sabally, who were out to build their fitness up. Sabally was the biggest off-season acquisition by the Liberty,\u00a0signing as a free agent.<\/p>\n
Leonie Fiebich, Raquel Carrera, Pauline Astier and Ugonne Onyiah weren’t with the Liberty yet as they were finishing up their overseas commitments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Caitlin Clark was excited to get back on the court Saturday and play in a\u00a0WNBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-628468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}