Liberty get win over Fever, as Caitlin Clark misses game with groin injury
Breanna Stewart had 24 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists to help the New York Liberty to a 98-77 win Wednesday night over the Indiana Fever, who played without star guard Caitlin Clark.
Clark missed the game after injuring her right groin on Tuesday night in the final minute of the game against Connecticut in Boston. Clark has a busy weekend ahead as Indiana is hosting the WNBA All-Star Game and she's slated to compete in the 3-point contest and is captain of one of the two teams.
Sabrina Ionescu, who will also be in the 3-point contest, added 15 points and nine assists for the Liberty (15-6).
Stewart got the Liberty off to a strong start as they led 32-24 after one quarter and were up 15 at the half. The Liberty's All-Star forward had 13 points, nine rebounds and five assists by the break.
New York put the game away in the third quarter behind Stewart, whose three-point play with 3:57 left made it 71-48 much to the delight of the crowd of 17,371. The Fever could only get within 15 the rest of the way.
Kelsey Mitchell led Indiana (12-11) with 16 points. The Fever fell to 4-6 when Clark has missed a regular season game this season.
Will Caitlin Clark play in the WNBA All-Star weekend?
"No discussion yet about this weekend." Indiana coach Stephanie White said. "There was imaging done, but there hasn't been any discussion beyond tonight."
White said that Clark's management team will figure out whether she'll be able to participate this weekend.
"For me, it's a big deal for us to have All-Star in Indianapolis, and of course, with Caitlin being a focal point of all of that. As the coach of the Indiana Fever, it's not a bigger deal than our long-term season, but it's also part of the fun," White said. "Those are conversations that Caitlin will have with her group. I probably won't be a part of those, but we're going to support her no matter what."
The coach said that Clark had imaging done Wednesday afternoon and deferred to the team's training staff for more details except to say that she considered it good news.
"For me, anything that we're talking about that's still day to day is always good news for me, but that's a layman's viewpoint," she said.
