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WNBA: Indiana Fever unable to spoil Chicago Sky’s ring night

WNBA: Indiana Fever unable to spoil Chicago Sky’s ring night

The 2-7 Indiana Fever have been competitive in all but two games this year and on Tuesday night were again competitive against a really good team in the Chicago Sky (4-2).

The Fever won the second quarter 27-14 to take a seven-point lead into halftime, lost the lead and came back to hold a four-point advantage with 6:43 to go in the fourth. They got a wide-open layup for WNBA third-leading scorer Kelsey Mitchell’s 15th point of the fourth and 25th of the game to cut a new deficit to three with 21 seconds to go. But they went back down five after Courtney Vandersloot free throws and failed to extend the game when Alanna Smith missed a three with seven ticks remaining.

“Little bit of a rough start. Once we recovered from that, it was a ball game,” said Fever head coach Marianne Stanley. “And I keep telling our guys we’re a lot closer than anybody else thinks. And we’re doing a lot of things well. We don’t have much of a margin for error. But, man, we’re battling and we’re competing and they have to get used to the rigors of the pro game. And we are, we are improving each and every time out.

“There were a number of bright spots. We got 42 points in the paint. We gave up 40-something, but 42 points in the paint’s a lot of points in the paint. Most nights that’s good enough to win. … We outrebounded a team with a lot of length. I mean that’s a big lineup out there a lot of the time. And we outrebounded them. Five people in double figures. That’s a great sign.”

One glaring stat from the game was 35 free throw attempts for Chicago. Indiana was awarded about half that (18).

It’s hard to overcome that free throw disparity, but, nevertheless, the Fever know they can’t give up 95 points.

“I think it showed them being a veteran team,” Mitchell said of the Sky’s offensive success. “We had a couple mental lapses as far as personnel and knowing what to do on certain ball screens and it killed us down the stretch. Vandersloot and…

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