an 85-77 victory<\/a> over the Connecticut Sun in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,156 at the TD Garden in Boston. As teammate Aliyah Boston tried to console her, Clark walked to the basket stanchion and banged her head against it before heading to the bench. During the timeout, she covered her head with a towel and appeared to be holding back tears.<\/p>\n\u201cNo update. Just felt a little something in her groin,\u201d Fever coach Stephanie White said after the game. \u201cWe\u2019ll get it evaluated and see what happens from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark, who has already missed nine games this season for two separate left leg injuries, struggled with her shooting in the rare WNBA game at the home of the Celtics and Bruins, scoring 14 points while making 4 of 14 shots. She committed five turnovers and made her only 3-pointer in seven tries with just three minutes left, giving the Fever a nine-point lead that was their biggest of the game. <\/p>\n
The second-year phenom was not available to reporters after the game. The Fever were scheduled to play the New York Liberty on Wednesday night at the Barclays Center \u2014 their second straight game in an NBA arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly we\u2019ll have another evaluation, probably a conversation, and we\u2019ll see where we are,\u201d White said. \u201cBut this group has played without her. At least we\u2019ve got experience in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark\u2019s struggles didn\u2019t dampen the mood for the fans who filled the Garden to see New England\u2019s only WNBA team play in Boston for the second year in a row. Both have been sellouts \u2014 the biggest crowds to see a basketball game in the building\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
And this year, it was the visiting Indiana Fever and their breakout star that most of them were there to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for people in the city, or fans around the area, to come and support a team here,\u201d Clark said before the game. \u201cYou don\u2019t take these opportunities for granted. It\u2019s always fun to go to a new arena in a new place and enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans wearing Clark\u2019s No. 22 crowded toward the court before the game trying to get her autograph, waving her jersey or homemade signs begging for a selfie. Among those in attendance were Celtics Jaylen Brown and Georges Niang, Bruins Jeremy Swayman and Mason Lohrei, Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey.<\/p>\n
Clark added seven assists and eight rebounds for the Fever, who pulled away in the fourth quarter. She committed one of her turnovers on the Fever\u2019s first possession and another when she stepped on the sideline at the end of the third quarter \u2014 guarded too closely to launch one of her logo 3-pointers. <\/p>\n
Clark said before the game that she took time to appreciate the opportunity to play in a building where so much basketball lore had been written. The Iowa native said she grew up respecting the Celtics as an organization, even though she now counts herself an Indiana Pacers fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Celtics are one of the premier organizations of the NBA,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd having won a championship two years ago now, it\u2019s kind of cool to just be in this building and surround yourself with the greatness that has played in this arena.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Celtics won it all in 2024 shooting an NBA record number of 3-pointers \u2014 something Clark, whose long-distance shooting made her a breakout star for the Hawkeyes and in her first two years in the WNBA, could appreciate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a Pacers fan. I just want to make that clear. But as I\u2019ve been growing up, they\u2019ve been a fun team to root for,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re really fun to watch. They shoot a lot of 3s, which maybe people make an argument against. But for myself, I think that\u2019s fun. I enjoy that. I think it\u2019s a great style of basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said she had never been to Boston and would have liked to take in a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, but baseball is off for the All-Star break. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like an amazing city,\u201d she said. \u201cI would love to come back here and explore a little bit more in the history of it and all the amazing things that you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That could be a while, because the city that is home to an unprecedented 18 NBA championships doesn\u2019t have a team in the WNBA; the Sun are the league\u2019s sole representative in New England, the birthplace of basketball.<\/p>\n
Boston, a three-time Massachusetts Player of the Year while at Worcester Academy before winning an NCAA championship at South Carolina, said she believed her namesake town could support a WNBA team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the atmosphere for the Celtics, when you look at the atmosphere for the two TD Garden games that now we\u2019ve had, it\u2019s been sold out. It\u2019s been energy,\u201d she said. \u201cThey obviously have been great, and I think that\u2019s going to be the same all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark left Tuesday night\u2019s game in the final minute holding back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2648,402,2242,1760,2000,4384,1996,13013,13015,8262,2652,2839,3441,13014,7850,1998,2001,13018,9111,1063,1782,99,4803,434,13017,13016],"class_list":["post-13394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aliyah-boston","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-connecticut","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-georges-niang","tag-ia-state-wire","tag-in-state-wire","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-fever","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-iowa","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-ma-state-wire","tag-massachusetts","tag-massachusetts-minutemen","tag-maura-healey","tag-nba-basketball","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-sports","tag-stephanie-white","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-basketball","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}