{"id":857835,"date":"2026-09-23T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857835\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T14:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T14:04:08","slug":"indiana-fevers-caitlin-clark-has-an-alyssa-thomas-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857835\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever&#8217;s Caitlin Clark Has an Alyssa Thomas Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has the chance to make history this 2026 WNBA season, but Phoenix Mercury star Alyssa Thomas remains the biggest obstacle to her doing so.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Clark recorded 27 points on 9-of-18 shooting, along with seven rebounds, nine assists and four steals. With that performance, she improved her season averages to 22.8 points, 3.9 rebounds and 8.5 assists per game.<\/p>\n<p>The Fever playmaker remains third in the league in scoring. However, she was unable to surpass Thomas in the assist leaderboard, remaining in second.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\/indiana-fever\/alyssa-thomas-loses-spot-caitlin-clark\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Clark previously claimed the No. 1 spot<\/a> in assists per game following her 14-assist performance against the Toronto Tempo last week. Unfortunately, a five-assist display in the Fever\u2019s blowout loss to the Washington Mystics on Sunday allowed Thomas to overtake her again.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas had a monster triple-double of 15 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists in the Mercury\u2019s 87-86 win against the Dallas Wings on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>                                          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/85357d96-7b0b-4287-9ec8-b2302906b368.jpeg\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"809\" title=\"85357d96-7b0b-4287-9ec8-b2302906b368\" alt=\" Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas (25) reacts during a game. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images via Reuters Connect\"\/>                                                                                     Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas (25) reacts during a game. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images via Reuters Connect                                                                                    <\/p>\n<p>The Fever star was previously on track to become the first WNBA player ever to lead the league in assists while finishing in the top three in scoring in the same season.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unlikely Clark will lose her spot in the scoring leaderboard, but if she wants to claim the historic WNBA first, she will need to record at least 10 assists in the Fever\u2019s season finale against the Minnesota Lynx. She must also hope that Thomas dishes out seven assists or less in the Mercury\u2019s final game against the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n<p>Both the Fever and Mercury play their last regular-season games on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\/indiana-fever\/caitlin-clark-pass-to-sophie-cunningham-draws-attention-for-wrong-reason\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Related: Caitlin Clark\u2019s Pass to Sophie Cunningham Draws Attention for the Wrong Reason<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Athlon Sports. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"summary gray\">This story was originally published September 23, 2026 at 7:12 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has the chance to make history this 2026 WNBA season, but Phoenix Mercury&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-857835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857835","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=857835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}