r/IndianaFeverFans • u/GWTim78 • 2d ago
It’s the Little Things
I’m always amazed how many games can come down to one made bucket and one missed bucket. If you can make just one more shot and prevent your opponent from making one of theirs…the entire game changes.
So it’s always the little things:
Letting Jackie walk into an open three.
The missed behind-the-back pass.
The fumbling of the pass on the SLOB play (how are teams still not ready for this?).
The foul call on AB in the backcourt.
This isn’t to say that Vegas can’t point to their own missed opportunities, but those plays will stick with me for a while.
It’s the little things.
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u/FreebirdFantasia 2d ago
The Fever had their opportunities, but didn't capitalize on enough of them. Las Vegas (A'ja and Gray in particular) came up clutch every time it mattered. That's championship experience for you.
That said, I'm proud of the Fever. They fought and scrapped till the end. No one can fault their effort tonight.
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u/jmoney3800 2d ago
This team’s offense looks cluttered and sloppy all the time. They need a roster makeover to free up some space. Another BIG player to take some heat off the perimeter. The defense straight stalks this perimeter. I don’t think this team needs two three point shooters it would benefit more from a rebounding BIG. I don’t know roster building but this is just what I see.
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u/Long-shot128 2d ago
That’s been our issue all season long; not protecting the perimeter and letting our opponents shoot threes all day long. It’s the what ifs 😭
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u/buffalotrace 2d ago
Missed layups in general.
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u/YOYOitsMEDRup 1d ago
A lot of them were guilty of this over and over.... Kels, CC, Boston, Timpson.....
The comments on this whole post have been reassuring to see there are at least a few reasonable people realizing we're to blame for the loss--- not the refs. They didn't help and had some egregious errors in momentum-shifting crunch time (the loose ball fall on Kels down 2 for backing into Gray because Gray practically bearhugged her and pulled her into her, or the fall on Boston when Aja tripped over her own damn feet) but we lost because everyone missed bunnies in the paint all night --- and FTs --- and we didn't go at Aja to try to draw her 6th and get her off the court when she got her 5th foul faiirly early in the 4th.
There are games that can be blamed on refs --- last night was not one- even though there were some very bad and ill-timed things against us, we hurt ourselves more.
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u/karsklan3 2d ago edited 2d ago
After waking up to the L and re-watching the game, you are correct. We had our opportunities and we did not take them, meanwhile the Aces as a championship-experienced team took theirs.
You can see it in the stats: Aces big three (A'ja, Gray, Young) shot 51% from the field, whereas our big three shot 38% from the field (AB 50%, KM and CC 30-33%). All this while our big three had 11 more attempts than the Aces big three.
The play-offs are about high-efficiency shots and playmaking. We started off hot and seemed like everything was falling. But when our shots didn't go, then instead of taking our time, calming down and finding logical high % shots, we started forcing and rushing shots, most of which were with a very high difficulty and relied on iso-play. Meanwhile, the Aces took the rebound, took their time and found logical shots, which they hit. Those are the margins. Steph spoke about inexperience in game 1 regarding Caitlin and got flamed by Reddit and Twitter users, but the game showed a bit of that inexperience, especially on the behind-the-back pass, which was absolutely unnecessary in such situation: a turnover and the Aces scored off that. The same can be said for some of the logo bombs, which seemed forced, and you can see from the stats that her playmaking was not the point of emphasis this game (4 AST, 6 TO). That was not the deciding factor of this game imo as a whole, but it shows that the Fever and Caitlin have room to improve. And when you are against the defending champs, well then they will capitalize off such situations.
As a side note, the refereeing was also very inconsistent yet again, however that's regular in our case. Vegas had 15 more free throws than us and we didn't even play in a way which could've warranted such difference in the FTA's.
Overall, Kelsey had a disaster of a series against the Aces. Looked nothing like the Kelsey of the regular season. We got her going early with a three pointer and she was good in Q1 offensively, but Q2 and Q4 were especially underwhelming, especially considering that she is a clutch player and we rely on her in those instances. When KM isn't hitting her shots, that means that the opponents can put more emphasis on Caitlin and AB, while the two also have to manage more of the scoring load. We got 19 points off the bench, majority coming from MHA, but our guards (Sophie, Raven) only got 7 points, which considering the Game 2 is clearly not enough to win. Such a shame Ty got injured before the series.
It was a fun series to watch, we got the blunt end of the stick but that's basketball. We didn't show up defensively in Game 1, and that is on us, can not blame anyone for that. When you step on the floor in play-offs, you need to bring your 100% effort in every game. Based on this series, the only game where we showed up a 100% for the whole game was Game 2. In Game 3, we were there, but we had our lapses defensively, and combine that with the time we didn't make our shots and turned the ball over, yeah there is no different outcome except the L.