The circus is coming to town Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not one with trapeze artists, acrobats and clowns, but rather the Indiana Fever, a team that\u2019s \u2014 routinely but mostly unintentionally \u2014 found itself at the center of drama this season.<\/p>\n
The Fever have made headlines for various reasons, including on-court incidents, sideline spats, arguing with officials and literal finger-pointing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sophie Cunningham\u2019s remarks about trans athletes and the resulting reaction, including planned rallies in her support, have become the latest story surrounding the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mostly overshadowed by all this talk, though, is the fact that the Fever are good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Really good and a joy to watch.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re a true title contender with a lethal offense of historic proportions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In circus speak, Caitlin Clark is the ringmaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever dribbles the ball during a game against the Dallas Wings on Thursday, August 20, 2026, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The third-year guard has emerged as an MVP candidate, averaging 22.4 points and a league-leading 8.3 assists per game.<\/p>\n
The Fever also have the league\u2019s second-leading scorer in Kelsey Mitchell, a dynamic big in Aliyah Boston, an astute leader in coach Stephanie White and, well, a political lightning rod in Cunningham.<\/p>\n
But if the Fever are the Ringling Bros. then the Liberty are Barnum & Bailey, and Saturday\u2019s game is poised to be the greatest show of the weekend.<\/p>\n
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts to a play with teammate guard Sophie Cunningham (8) during the second half of a WNBA basketball game against the Dallas Wings in Dallas on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. AP Photo\/LM Otero<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely going to be [like] a playoff game,\u201d Breanna Stewart said Friday. \u201cObviously, you know there\u2019s a lot of implications behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fever bested the Liberty by a combined 34 points in their past two meetings, both in front of a rowdy Indiana crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Liberty have the home-court advantage this time around and are expecting a sellout at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
More importantly, though, New York feels like it has a lot on the line.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu #20 of the New York Liberty shoots past Kamilla Cardoso #10 of the Chicago Sky during the second half at Wintrust Arena on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s just another game, I think we can prove tomorrow that we can beat these kind of teams, that we can play our style,\u201d said Leonie Fiebich, who hopes to suit up for her first game in seven weeks. \u201cSometimes we let the other teams dictate how we play, so I feel like we got to go out there and show how we want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what has happened the past two times New York played the Fever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In both Liberty losses, Indiana pushed the pace, generated good looks from behind the arc and had New York playing on its back foot for long stretches. The Liberty fell into deficits of 20 or more points and never recovered.<\/p>\n
Fans look on as Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham (8) stands on the floor during the second half of a WNBA basketball game against the Dallas Wings in Dallas on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. AP Photo\/LM Otero<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones views Saturday as an opportunity for the Liberty to show collective growth on defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that [we want to prove] we can slow down a team that has such a high-powered offense,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIn our matchups with them this year, they\u2019ve been able to kind of just really get off on us and go off on us. And so, yeah, that we can slow them down, that we can make them feel uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another subplot to Saturday is the potential for a political clash outside the arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones #35 of the New York Liberty grabs the rebound against the Connecticut Sun during the first half of a WNBA basketball game at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Saturday, August 15, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a rally planned to \u201csupport Sophie,\u201d with attendees asked to bring signs and wear shirts bearing XX and XY chromosomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a counterprotest also scheduled in support of trans inclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In some ways, Saturday might be the perfect encapsulation of where the WNBA is right now, where basketball might be a background to everything else around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like every year it\u2019s kind of gotten more and more and more not about basketball and about everything else that\u2019s going on,\u201d said Sabrina Ionescu when asked broadly about the off-court discourse surrounding the WNBA. \u201cI think it\u2019s tough because obviously there\u2019s a lot of things that are just going on in the world and society outside of sport, but sport is so intertwined in politics and everything else that\u2019s going on and especially with everyone having a platform, you have the opportunity to voice and fight for what you believe in and sometimes that\u2019s differing opinions, and you kind of have to just accept that not everyone is gonna have the same opinion as you.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, just like there\u2019s a level of respect for everyone that I have, no matter what their opinions are, they\u2019re entitled to their opinion. And I respect everyone just like as a human being and for what they stand for until there\u2019s something that\u2019s disrespectful or something that\u2019s kind of targeted that isn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The circus is coming to town Saturday.\u00a0 Not one with trapeze artists, acrobats and clowns, but rather the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,100551,62443,9,24,8915,63,64829,319,11452],"class_list":["post-327101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-indiana-fever","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-nyc","tag-sophie-cunningham","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}