A Heartbreaking End to the Fever’s Season

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1:05What is going on Fiber Nation? Welcome back to another episode here of the Fiber Focus podcast on the setting the pace. Podcast Network, your Indiana Fever season comes to an end after a heartbreaking 94 83 loss to the lost Vegas aces. Casey Johnson here joining me to talk about this game. He is on the road. He's on the road. The majority of this game watching it on his phone in a truck and you know, Casey, this was just a heart breaker of a game like I mentioned at the top just. Fiber had chances they just could not get over the hump in this one. Yeah, you know, we were talking before we came on the air here and I was thinking, you know, I think that this is a team that shows their postseason and experience in this game. And a lot of people would probably go so far as to stay, you know, well, they almost made it to the finals last year. You have to remember almost none of the players who actually played down the stretch in those games were the same. It's not much more than Aliyah and Lex and Kelsey.

2:10That's really about it. And so you're talking about, you know, Caitlin Clark, who's only been in one playoff series in her in WNBA career. You have Michaela Timson, who was there last year, but didn't play very much. And really, for as many awesome moments as Kelsey Mitchell had over the course of the postseason last year, she really hasn't experienced that much of a postseason. I mean, there's a reason why they got Aliyah and then Kate when the number one pick some back-to-back years is because they, historically, the past 10 years or so, just not been that great unfortunately. And we saw rookie mistakes over the course of this. And I mean postseason rookie mistakes where you try to take the tough shot rather than the swing pass to try to get something else. You once you have your initial flurry and then the very experienced Aces team comes with

3:11an absolute masterclass by Becky Hammond to actually take away. Kate went to take away Kelsey, who never really got going the way that we expected her to in this game. Once you have those holes plugged up in the defense, you find that they didn't have a lot of other options. We have encouraged moving forward and we'll get to a season in review and looking forward here within the next couple of weeks as we ramp up to have potentially our hearts broken again in the NBA season because that's what being a sports fan is. But I am encouraged by the fact that Raven showed things. I'm encouraged by the fact that Michaela Timson outside of this series looked like she's growing into a player that you can trust moving forward. Those are solid players. Those are cheap players. I do think that the fever have a lot of pieces to work with here, but the chess board itself

4:12is going to need a little bit of rearranging if they want to have a deep hosties and run because ultimately what we are finding is Alia Kelsey, Caitlin, those three players are take awayable. If you play the correct defense and when that happens, you need other people who can contribute. In this situation, they did not have the right players with the right experience in order to do that. Really, other than Maisha Heinz Allen, who, believe it or not, the person who's won a championship who has been on those deep hosties and runs, she was the one who ended up fueling their entire offense T.J. McConnell style in the second quarter of this game. I do think that there is a lot to build on. I'm proud of the effort that they showed. They didn't come out. They didn't look lazy and they didn't look listless. They really gave it everything that they had. They just got outclassed by a better testing. Yeah, I mean, it's a good point.

5:14I think there was a lot of unique situations here that fever got themselves into. I think the biggest storyline is like the first quarter they came out guns ablaze and they were really connected offensively. Caitlin had 11. I think Kelsey finally got in double digits in the second quarter, but that duo combines for 13 made baskets and out of 41 shots. When you go 13 of 41, that's almost, that is actually worse than the 10 of 33 they shot in game one. It was just they could not get anything going efficiently. A lot of it is, you got to give credit to what the Aces were able to do defensively. We talked about this off air, but just they got away. The Aces were able to get away with Asia Wilson getting it a foul triple. I thought it was an excellent challenge by the fever when the original call was on Alia Boston, but it was actually Asia Wilson who pushed Alia Boston. I believe it was in to was it to jewel the weight in that situation for me. But when she did that, I mean, she clearly ran into her, but it was because Asia Pusher,

6:18they correctly reversed the call. And you know, Asia gets five fouls. You're like, okay, how do you continue to go at her? Because I think Kelsey ended up getting her fifth when she ran into her at the basket. It was just they put her on Maisha, Hyde Zalin because Maisha, Hyde Zalin is not really an outside threat. She'll score around the basket and she can kind of chill in the dunker spot, but it was just they could not find a way to get Asia into positions to potentially get her to foul out because I think if they would have got her in a foul trouble or got her fouled out of the game. That would have opened up a totally different dynamic for what this team looks like. And you saw it like just her presence at the rim, even if she wasn't necessarily blocking the shot. Players were pulling up a little bit earlier, trying to avoid getting the shot blocked and things like that. But I just felt like once again, like Alia Boston showed up and showed out why she is such a special center and how she is a very good defender when it comes to going up against Asia Wilson. Asia Wilson is a plus 12 in this game.

7:19Alia Boston was a minus one. If you're looking at a plus minus in the five minutes that they didn't share the court together, uh, Asia Wilson got a lot of her points from that, you know, that situation with nobody really on the fever being able to guard her outside of Alia Boston. So I just felt like when we watched when I watched this team into second half specifically, really in the second quarter on, they just struggled to get any offense going. I felt like there were so many four shots by the fever, trying to go for the kill shot instead of just getting into the paint where they dominated the previous game and they, they were able to, you know, the days is were able to kind of, you know, slow that down and and wall it off a little bit. But it's just when you're constantly trying to go for the three point kill shot. And I know Caitlin, uh, it is very good at making those shots from time to time, but you can't settle for that. And I, and I felt like early on in the first half, defensively, the fever gave up too many wide open looks on that three point line.

8:20It was just like the aces were getting comfortable looks without contention. And the fever were not really doing anything to change it. And so everything we saw positive from the fever defensively in game two from the second quarter on, we never got that level of intensity from the defensive side of things. So there was a lot of question marks I had. You know, I've been very negative about Lexi Hall for the majority of this season. Everybody knows that I just expected a lot more from her, but I thought the way she defended in game to even even tonight about when she played, she defended well. She did yourself in some foul trouble, but when she picked up her fourth foul, she like never went back into the game. And I felt like that was maybe a little bit of a misstep at times. Just and I have that wing size out there that can rebound the basketball, get in there. At least she's somewhat more of an outside threat than my shahine's talent at times. So there were there was just a lot of different things that you could go through and kind of like pick at and say, this is what could have changed differently. This could have changed differently.

9:20But it's just when the fever had the chances to kind of get that lead, you know, for three to zero or two to zero, they could just never in that fourth quarter make the basket they needed to when they had multiple opportunities to hit the shots to tie it to game up. And once again, like make it a like make it a game. They just they kind of beat themselves at times with just inability to execute, getting themselves in bad position defensively. I just, you know, I don't want to give the aces too much credit because I don't like the aces. You know, I thought Chelsea Gray made some big time shots, especially when Asia was dealing with foul trouble. But overall, I just felt like the fever looked like they kind of got themselves a little bit discombobulated when when they really needed it is to kind of hunker down and like just get some of those like I felt like this. What we saw all season long, too, because they were like below 500 and clutch games, nine and 10 now, nine and 11. Just you were hoping for a little bit better execution and you didn't get it.

10:24Yeah. And I think also to your point, I think part of the issue is that the whole team gets rattled at such time as they think that the officiating is going the wrong way or that something is going against them or that the ruffs are terrible. And I don't think that the ruffs are in the W pretty much ever, particularly good. And there were a couple of moments down the stretch here where like either a I can't believe you called that now or be I can't believe you didn't call that now. And a lot of those 50, 50 calls did end up going against the fever. But with that being said, you can't let yourself get in the position where that is determining your mood and you start giving up because ultimately the fever didn't make their shots. They had so many open shots that they just did not get or in in in totality,

11:30they had so many open shots that they passed up because they wanted to get Caitlin and Kelsey and Alia going and it just was not a recipe for six says tonight. And when those punches happen, when you feel like, oh my God, we challenged this call and it was obvious and it to us and it still didn't go our way. God of dust yourself off and keep going. I get it. I mean, Caitlin was bleeding. She was bleeding and they didn't call anything from her being hit in the face. I understand why you're upset. And even Stephanie White, you could see her saying, hey, we have to lock in and finish this thing out when Asia Wilson trips over her own feet and Alia Boston gets called for the foul, but they already burned a challenge that many would argue that they should have won and they didn't have the ability to challenge the fact that, you know, Alia Boston didn't touch her.

12:32Not great stuff, but it doesn't matter. You have to keep going and that is the kind of boys that I hope, particularly with with with a B and with Caitlin and with Caitlin and with Caitlin because unfortunately she's at the centerpiece of this. You cannot let yourself get thrown off of your game. When you get into those situations, you have got to find a way to dig deep and keep going because up until approximately the last 40 seconds of this game, it was an incredibly winnable game. And all the times that the body language was bad on the part of most of the fever, all the times that the body language was bad, all the times that the language language was bad. All of these times that they found themselves down in the dumps and it felt like it was in those shucks. I can't believe we're going to get screwed out of this. You still had a shot to win the game. And when I say you had a shot to win the game, I don't just mean a chance.

13:35You had shots to win the game. Unfortunately, we get, you know, a return to Nightmare's past of Kelsey Mitchell, fumbling an in-bounds past at a really, really critical moment. Kelsey Mitchell, one of the best players in the world can't have it and can't have it. And I feel like the entire fever operation would be a championship operation. If they just tightened up like 10, 15%, you just tighten up 10, 15%. Then you're going undefeated in the regular season. Like it's the, at a certain point, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and you have to say, what needs to change about the process? What needs to change about the way that I do things? Because this team does have enough talent to make a deep run, but there's something that keeps them from doing it.

14:38And that's what I'm trying to figure out, to understand. Yeah, I think a lot of it is just a mental aspect of the game, right? Like, I agree. They're there, like all the time. And that's just so frustrating to me because, you know, Caitlin is a terrific score, a terrific basketball player. We saw what she did in game two, like doing stuff that nobody's, I'm Pat Boyland. Nobody had done that in a regular season game. I mean, and W NBA history, what she did in a playoff game, no one had even done in a regular season game, let alone a playoff game. That's impressive. But it like, I think it's going to sound harsh to say this, but she has to grow up a little bit and she's a young player and she's got all this start him on her. And she didn't really even ask for it. It just kind of happened because people gravitated towards her. She's a very likable personality. She's very competitive. I love that about her. She's got a ton of competitive drive. Like, she's out there playing with probably a broken tooth. You know, I'm laughing, which she's showing.

15:38She's showing the official what they didn't stop the game to look and see what happened. I mean, they could have at least called like a, hey, let's see if there was a hostile actor because like, for how many times they went to review something for a hostile act, like the fact they were actually reviewing the Kelsey Mitchell foul to see if it should have been upgraded to a flagrant. The fact that they gave a double technical foul on a play on in the very beginning of the first quarter between Turner and Clark, when Clark pushed her out of their group huddle, like, that's a nothing, that's a nothing burger and most professional sports. Like we need a legit commissioner. We know all this, but there's got to be changes made. But all I'm getting at is like Clark, she is a very emotional player. She's a very competitive player. She's got to learn to kind of like channel that energy and just keep it contained to where she is not getting just all over the place. I don't want her to lose the spirit she plays with, but it's just like, sometimes she gets in her own head. She takes some tough shots and you know, everyone's going to look at the

16:41officiating tonight and say, well, there was a massive discrepancy in free throws once again, because it's just how it goes. I mean, what was it? 20 to 35 for total attempts fever only go 14. I'll trust you. I'm in a hotel room in North. Yeah. So for the 20 14 of 20 for the fever, 28 of 35 for the aces. So a plus 14. I mean, honestly, it's the difference in the game. It's a plus 14 for the aces from the free throw line. They win the game by 11 and the fever had one more three. So it was really just a difference of that. Uh, math is pretty cool sometimes, but I was just math works. Uh, but no, I just, yeah, Kelsey disappointed me at times tonight, but I also was like waiting for her to get more involved in the offense. I felt like there was too many wasted possessions for the fever where they really weren't getting good looks for their two guards. And they didn't get enough good touches down low for, for Alia.

17:42Uh, Alia is one of those players that I trust her in the post. And if she doesn't have Asia on her, what are we doing? Get to the ball in the post. Uh, get an easy to like, it's just simple math. Like it's so, it's so obvious how good of a score she is down low. And then if Asia does get switched on her, like tried setting a screen with my Asian high in Zalyn on, on Turner to get the switch with Asia boom. Hit her right in the post. Asia's not going to try to foul her. She's going to do everything she can to avoid getting a six foul. That's too easy points. I just think there are so many simple ways they could have just maybe dumbed the game down a little bit more to their advantage. And it's part of just learning. Uh, I think just watching, you know, from an NBA perspective, how everybody on the Pacers, like their whole starting five was just so in sync with everything that was happening. They don't really have a five unit they go to consistently. They have a three person unit with who's going to be the fourth and fifth tonight.

18:42And that's where I think they have to establish who do we trust in late game situations? Who can actually be a starter for this team? I don't know what the future of this fever team holds. But I, I, the, the Minnesota links got swept. We talked about that. And the Fisa Collier will be a free agent, I believe it. I don't know what the future looks like for her. Minnesota, but that is the type of player. I think the fever needs to add to, she's great player. They need to add someone like that because I feel like they are just lacking front court depth. And I think with the way Raven Johnson stepped up, I don't know how much there needs to be a point of emphasis on like we got to retain our back court and just be this a great scoring team because, you know, it, it feels a little bit Montaillais Steph Curry. And I think you might need to find somebody that might be a little more clay Thompson Steph with this group moving forward. And they, they, they got to find somebody that can help them on both sides of the ball, even though I think Kelsey is a solid defender.

19:43They just, there, there's got to be some tweaks made to this roster. Whether you meal prep or meal panic, Instacart's new shopping assistant Clementine is here to help. Now you can generate a recipe in seconds, add everything you need to make it to your cart and have it delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus you can plan a menu for any occasion, get meal ideas for the week and reorder your faves with just a few taps. That way you can spend less time figuring out what to make and more time enjoying it. Download Instacart and try Clementine today. We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Visit Blinds.com to order your free samples.

20:45Yeah, and I think that the difficult thing is that whatever three, whatever tweaks do end up being made to this roster, they're going to have to hurt. And I think that that's the that's the hard day is. And we've talked about this all year. It is not a soft cap. It's a hard cap. You have down to the dollar, down to the penny and amount of money that you can spend. And Aliyah Kelsey and Caitlin are most of it. And so there's a lot of things that need figured out. There's a lot of accounting that needs to take place. There's transactions that are going to need to happen. And it's impossibly difficult to draw up. It's impossibly difficult to figure out exactly what needs to happen. Moving forward. Of course, that's a discussion for a different day, but it's where my mind goes because even so like you say, well, they need this

21:47archetypal player. And yes, it's very easy to say, yes, they need an MVP level player. But at the same time, like if they had, let's also go to the links, right, if they had Natasha Howard this year, does Natasha Howard change things for them when Caitlin's actually playing? So much of that fit was supposed to be herstriking down the court and Caitlin throwing the open pass. She's got the veteran leadership. She's got all of that does that make a difference. When we're talking about that archetypal player, it is just front court depth that can score and defend. And that is going to need to come from somewhere. It's just at this point, nearly impossible to figure out where until you see where some other chips fall. Because there are so many things that are going to need to happen

22:49logistically, procedurally, you know, we're going to need to see who is available. We're going to need to see who gets hurt during unrivaled, right? Like I mean, and the season in WNBA season ending injuries happen somewhat frequently in a different way. That's insane. And so it's, it's a difficult one. And this is a difficult loss to swallow because in Caitlin literally just said it a couple of minutes ago in her post game interview at the press conference. She said, we had it right there and we played a C game. And that is what it comes down to is you didn't make the shots. You didn't make the plays. You didn't scheme well enough. And there's very few people I can think of within the favorite organization from top to bottom that don't have come sort of a role on this or at least

23:52some question that needs to be asked to them by the Simon family, right? It's like everybody has a little bit of a piece because it's way there's a lot less people at fault when your team is terrible. Right. There's a lot less people at fault. But from the players to the coaching staff to, you know, the GM to the president to all the way up, there everybody has a little piece in making you almost good enough. And almost good enough is the most difficult place to be because it's the most difficult place to overcome. It is the same thing that we saw in this game from the fever, right? It's actually not that hard to get close, but to create that sustained run is when you have to be firing on all cylinders. It's exactly the same way organizationally.

24:54So that's what my, well, other than the Pacers, that's what my focus shifts to as far as a fever focus. No pun intended pun intended. I'm finding whatever I can here. But that's what that's what I say is where do we move from here? And who is to blame and who ends up not part of this organization anymore? Because there's one thing where you say, you know, I saw somebody make the point the other day, like Stephanie White's not going to lose her job. She created the best offense in the history of the WNBA. Like she, when you have all of this success and when you have all of it, it stops working at me. I'm about to make the counterpoint. I'm just laughing at the other. Like whenever you have a coach that has that much success and puts up those kind of numbers and all of that, it's very rare that the coach actually gets fired on the other hand. When you have Caitlin, you have Kelsey, you have a Leah, it's very hard not to put

25:57up those numbers. And it does feel like sometimes they were succeeding in spite of the system rather than because of it. But the other thing I think about too is, and I've seen this example use so many times, the Detroit pistons of the early 2000s, right? They were so close and they had all of the pieces when they moved on from Rick Carlisle to find not even necessarily a better coach, but a better fit for the team. And they ended up getting Larry Brown and they ended up getting a chip out of it. And that's the part that makes me wonder is there, is this the coach that brought us to this point and they need somebody who is, I mean, kind of like the argument that I made about Kathy in my, in my, my white angle of like, Kathy probably was the right commissioner for a certain point. And she was a part of the reason why we got here. But now we need somebody else. Is that the case with Stephanie White? I don't know. Does somebody do the people who gave moonique and Lexi these big contracts?

26:59Do they need to answer for that? I don't know because they didn't play up to those contracts with it. The same time they earned those contracts in previous years. So I don't know how many of these players need to move out. I don't know. So that's what I'm thinking about moving forward. So what you're telling me is you don't know. It's just kidding. No, I pretty much got it all figured out. But well, he said, I don't know. I don't know. Here's what I'll say about Stephanie White. Like she's got her flaws. Don't give me wrong. Becky Hammond's a better coach, but like, yeah, I mean, this is a team that's what I, how many championships with Becky Hammond? Like, yeah, you couldn't have drawn a more difficult match up to play two games on the road against like the MVP. She's better than most coaches alive. That's not a problem to be not as good of a coach as Becky. Yeah. I just think that I think that there is just such unfair criticism around Stephanie White. There has been since she's been brought in as a feverhead coach. Yeah, she's got her flaws. Every coach does. I mean, what coach really doesn't have their flaws.

28:01I just think this rosters flawed. And I mean, yeah, you can get on Kelly Croscoff in Amber Cox and say, you got to do a better job. But like you talk about it, like Lexi Hall and Monique Billings, they were, you know, they got market value for what they received, you know, from the fever. But that's over. Well, one and a half million dollars that you invested in your, in your tight budget. And they combined for a total of zero points in game three. Like, yeah, that mean, come on. Like if we're trying to be critical here, like, let's just call out what it is. Like, it's a three-man show and they have nothing really to show outside of that. And unless, okay, thank God, my Aisha Hinds, Zalant scored 10 points in the second quarter. And thank God, Raven Johnson was, you know, hopped. Like even Raven Johnson was really a part of this rotation for like half the season. It was Tiharis and like God forbid you put yourself in a terrible spot where you're having to play minutes in the final game of the season. And Tiharis hurts herself. Like, should she have even been on the floor at that point? I don't know.

29:02Like the game was pretty much already over. Like, why are we not just playing developmental players that are like at the end of the roster? But that's, I think that that's also a WNBA related flaw too. Because with only, get with the roster size being as low as it is. It's very hard to actually get that deep in the bench. Like you have to have somebody who at least halfway matters out there at all times. Yeah. So it's a very difficult math equation there. Yeah, they have to maybe broaden the roster a little bit just for those type of situations. Like, hey, into bench players, like, all right. Because like, when you're down by 20 some points in the last game of the season on the road against the number one seed, like you're not going to win that game more than likely. So like, why are we playing any of our key players in that spot? But like, no, I mean, I would be shocked if Sophie Cunningham is brought back next season. I just, she really tell it off. I mean, she had two incredible shots tonight that were really timely. The, the steal at the end of the first quarter to get the bucket in the tie the game at 30 or the first quarter.

30:04Yeah, tie the tie the game at 31. And then the big three that she had, I believed, cut it to two points. I was like, okay, like that was massive. They needed that was like, she finally got a look. But they've just, they've got to do a better job of getting other players involved and integrated into the offense. It was too often ball gets sticky. It's a Kelsey show. It's the Caitlin show. Oh, Alia might get something off one of their actions, but it's never like a, hey, we're going to get all these players involved. And you need that. You cannot just run an offense where it's so much pressure and there's so much. Kelsey, you got to get us a bucket. Caitlin, you got to get us a bucket, especially when it's mostly half court offense, because that is to me what really took the fever out of this game. They did not play with hardly any pace at all. And they are fast up and down team. That's why they're held to 83 points in this one because they were playing the ace's style and the ace is lived at the free throw line. Now you can blend the officials for calling stuff that kind of kept the fever out of that pace.

31:04I'll give you that a little bit. But the fever did not ramp up that defensive pressure like they had done in game two. And that is a reason why Caitlin Clark finishes with four assists and six turnovers. Like you need Caitlin to be close to eight to 10 assists every single game because she's getting the bottom pushing in transition. They didn't have any of that tonight. So I just, yeah, you got to give the the ace is credit for what they did. You got to give the fever credit for hanging in there as long as they did, despite how mediocre they played in this game. But it's a flawed roster. They got a flawed system. And I don't think that Stephanie Watts, that's certainly the wrong coach. I think that she deserves at least another year with a maybe a more suited roster to kind of balance some of the weaknesses this team has. But you got to look bigger picture here. This is the Caitlin Clark, O'Leah Boston show moving forward. Yeah. Kelsey can be a part of it if she wants to be. I mean, I don't have a problem with that. I don't think there's going to be any pushback if you bring all three back is all through a worthy of coming back.

32:07But it if it's going to be hurtful, like you said, it's kind of hurt a little bit to make some drastic changes with this roster. You might have to do so if it's going to be for the betterment of this team and what they can actually do in the playoffs. Because big, great regular season team all you want. If you can't win in the playoffs when it matters the most because you can get defensive stops, then you've got to make some changes. Yeah. And you know, I'm just sitting here thinking at a certain point is it a geometry problem because it is. Now and Kelsey Mitchell, she's one of the best basketball players I've ever seen, particularly scoring. I'm it's and it's physically painful to talk about whether or not she's going to beat here because to such an extent, she is is Indiana basketball or the fever. But I think about okay. Kelsey is, you know, a 23 point per game score, whatever she ended up averaging.

33:09Let's call it 22 to make it nice and round. What if you have a shooting guard and a small forward or a shooting guard and a power forward, whatever. Who are each averaging 11? Well, that's exactly the same number of points. That's exactly the same amount of offensive output. That's another spot on the floor that you have to guard at all times. Whereas Michaela's not that and for long stretches of the year, you know, Lexi wasn't that either. So. The thing is if this was a soft cap system, I would say bring all three of them back, make some trades and shoot for the stars. Yeah, but I think that you have to ask yourself and there are people smarter than me who are figuring this out. But you have to ask yourself is there.

34:11There are three are there three salaries, no matter who the players are. Are those three salaries too punitive to a salary cap to carry three stars of that magnitude in the WNBA. And if the fundamental answer to that question is no. Unfortunately, it's going to have to be Kelsey who goes. Yeah. And it's uncomfortable, but I don't want it, but it's just it is like you said, math works. And sometimes it does not work in your favor. Yeah, I mean, and it's like nobody's wanting to push Kelsey out the door. Nobody's saying that, but it's like you are. You've gone through similar iterations of this team the last couple of years. And I think you've kind of met your limit. You are not good enough to beat an Asia Wilson level team with what you have currently constructed. How do you fix it? I mean, who were the aces missing tonight again, by the way, a starter?

35:14Well, not only stuffing Talbot, but also people forget and the list of Smith is out. And the list of Smith was a huge part of that team. So you were already taking on a weekend aces. Yeah, weekend aces and you I wouldn't say you were worse than last year. I mean, because the aces were pretty pretty much the same. But like you had a chance in both games to win. I mean, obviously the fever got a hot Odyssey Sims and the group last year. That was just the bunch of missing toys that figured things out. But for this team here, like this was like we're trying to win a championship. We've got Caitlin Clark back. We've got Alia Boston. These are two number one overall picks. We got Kelsey Mitchell. We've got, hey, we've got two MVP candidates, two all NBA first team players on the on the roster. And and their shooting performance is in game one in game three. It pretty much is the reason you lost the game. They just could they couldn't do what, you know, they needed to do on the road. And I and I saw a graphic on Twitter tonight before we got on here.

36:18And it said Diana, Therossi and Capy Pondex, you guys are safe. This back court is not better than you. And I'm like, you know what? That's an actually fair point. Like they are not at that level yet. Those two are great scores, Capy Pondex and Diana, Therossi and just different players. And I think that's one thing that Caitlin can actually look forward to is like, how can I be a better three level score? How do I find ways to not just rely so much on my three point shot? And what's my workload going to look like if I don't have a Kelsey Mitchell next to me? Like how do I, you know, get open looks and things like that? So I don't know. We could probably ramble about this even longer just because there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. It's a big discussion of the one. It's going to be here for the next, what, six, eight months for us to do us. So we can, we can definitely do a season recap podcast, maybe get some other people on throughout the off season to kind of pick their brain on what they think the fever should do. But from from this perspective, just tonight, I was the whole entire fourth quarter.

37:19I could not sit on the couch. I was standing up watching the game. I was just every call was so pivotal. Every turnover, every miss shot. It just you start to add up how many missed opportunities the fever had in this game. I would say it was probably at least a dozen or more of just the first quarter on where they, this, the ball goes bounces a different way. And this call goes a different way. And this shot goes in like they went in the game by 10 points. It's just that is how pivotal every single possession is. And I think for the fever, another learning experience for them, sure, but like your past that point, I think now with this core, no, no moral victories for this group. Yeah. I think you're at the point now where you have a really good idea for a computer program. But the software is just buggy at the end of the day. And you just have to release some hot fixes. You have to figure it out.

38:20But the one thing that I will say because I do want to end this on a positive note here. Is this team, one thing that I was not upset at tonight is the level of not quit, the level of effort, the fact that they came to play, they came prepared for a dog fight. And they gave it what they have. The shots didn't go in. They ended up getting outplay. But they really, really, really put forth a heck of a lot of effort tonight. And for that, I can't fault them at all. And that's what we have one of the things that we've struggled with with the fever is sometimes they just laid out and died. I think that mentally they gave up or felt like they should or could give up at certain points. But as far as leaving it all out there, they left it all out there. So for that, for that, I cannot complain whatsoever.

39:21And that's what does give me hope about whatever part of this group remains going forward. Yeah, I mean, their fight was there all night. I will give them that much credit. They did not quit playing. I mean, Caitlin Clark nearly had a steel on an imbalanced play that could have led to the cutting it down to a five. Had the ball and got a fast brick. I mean, it was like right there. If Raven could have just got her hands on it and thrown it up, they would have had a quick two. And then all of a sudden, you're too possession game with 39 seconds left or whatever it was. And then the jump ball doesn't go their way. They mean, you could tell Raven was trying to get on the other side of one of the aces players. And she just was refusing to let her go over there. And Asia tips it right to Chelsea Gray. And then you waste 10 seconds and finally found her. It's just, yeah, like they were fighting. And I give them a lot of credit for that because especially with like Raven, like the way she was in there just scrapping for every ball. I was just like, she really stood out to me in this series. I mean, that's one of the things I will take away. But yeah, tough one tonight for sure.

40:21And a lot of questions moving forward with this fever team. But I do not wish the aces well. I do not hope they win their next series. I would love to see somebody beat them. Nothing makes me sicker to my stomach than seeing a close up of Chelsea Gray or Asia Wilson screaming into the camera like they've done something when all they've done is flop and get a foul call. So that being said, that's my positivity on the on the what's going on with the aces. Anybody but Las Vegas, even though I love Beckham and she is awesome. Caitlin Clark, Leibhawson, Kelsey Mitchell, great seasons. But next year, it's got to be even better and got to be healthier. And let's just let's just keep it moving forward here. No break next year during the WNBA season. So that's going to be very helpful, I think as well. Yeah. No Olympic break. I believe it's actually in the winter. Just somebody commented on that whenever I was going on my big rant earlier about I don't like the break and people are like, this guy is an idiot.

41:21Next year, there's not even a break. I'm like, hey, you got me. Okay, I'll admit it. But yeah, the next world cup is going to be in the winner. Yeah. So what have to worry about that? And I just store yours from now. Yeah. What's going on next year? Anything next year? Olympic Wild. No, it only happens every other year. So it happens for the Olympics and then it happens for the World Cup, but then the World Cup is moving. Gotcha. So we got two years straight with no break. Right? We got, well, no, next year we're not going to have a break. But then the Olympics are the year after that, the summer Olympics. Oh, summer Olympics. Gotcha. My fall. I'm all over the place. It's, what is it? 12 30? Yeah, forgive me everybody. No, it's only 11 30 on my clock, Bob. Well, my clock says 12 30 and I just, I got to wrap this up. Okay, so this is not a lot of fun talking about a loss, but it was a good conversation. I felt like we did a pretty good job trying to go through everything, being critical, being fair, trying to assess what this team is,

42:22where they're at and where they can move forward at and what they can do to do better, what they can do to get better. But I appreciate you kind of lead the charge for the majority of the time with this podcast and it's been a lot of fun kind of covering this team this year. I was hoping to maybe do a little bit more podcasting than I was able to do, but we're going to keep this show going. And I think next season it'll be more of your show and me joining you sporadically throughout the year instead of being our show because I just want to make sure that it gets the proper commitment that it deserves. So we're going to let you kind of spearhead that, but it's been a lot of fun. And hopefully, people, fans that have tuned into this show and have enjoyed our conversations will continue to go keep listening to us and we'll bring on more of their friends to check out the paper focus. Yeah, absolutely. And I said this at the end of our last show, but I can say it again, I cannot thank everybody enough for actually supporting this and for watching this.

43:26It's always, you know, even, you know, you've been in the space a long time and I've been doing work like this for a long time. And it doesn't matter how established you are, it doesn't matter what all you have going on, like you are always worried that nobody's going to watch the thing, that nobody's going to care about the thing that nobody's going to read the thing. And to see people be like on Twitter, be like, I'm so tired of the negativity, please give me some actual good fever content and like people that we don't even know are like the only good one I found is fever focus. Like that, that feels awesome. And, you know, we're not always right about everything. In some cases, we're not even always share about everything though we try to be. But we really, really love doing this and we really do love this team.

44:30And the WNBA, when it's good, it's so special. And that's why we have absolutely no want in our heart to stop this at all. And it is going to look different moving forward because guess what we found out. We found out that it's not great for Alex's physical or mental health to be going that hard 12 months out of the year. So I'm happy to pick up the ball during the summer and take you along for the ride. And this is we're going to have some more stuff periodically. We're still figuring out exactly what that looks like. But in the meantime, join us here in the next in the next little bit here. And we're going to have a season and review and probably before that Alex. And I'll have some kind of a conversation of exactly what we want to do with this moving forward. Alex has a PASER show to edit. He has a Fever show to edit now. I've been in a car for 12 hours

45:33today. My phone is at 9% battery and the fever season is over. So Alex, I think it's a really good time to go ahead and let this one go. Yeah, I will just say thank God I got the PASER show recorded at seven o'clock before the Fever game and I was able to get it edited before the Fever. Oh, okay. I don't have as much to do, but I got something to do. We'll get this up. I've already got the thumbnails and everything made ahead of time. So we are I'm doing it right now as we're talking up. But I appreciate everybody tuning in. And once again, we'll be back for more episodes here at the Fever Focus podcast. I'm not going anywhere in terms of my presence on the show. I just won't be on Ask Frequently. So sorry for those that were hoping that I'd be done after this year. I will not be. But I will not be honest frequently. But we will definitely try to get more and more guest that just probably know the W a lot better than I do. I'm not going to lie about it. I think it's pretty obvious. As I'm a new W follow word and fan, I'm just not as up

46:35to speed with everything that involves the W MBA as I am more of an MBA person that covers the Pacers daily writing and podcasting now full time. So it's pretty crazy. But this been a lot of fun. Casey, you've been wonderful to work with all season long. I love your flexibility and just ability to kind of you know, bring light to things that I necessarily didn't necessarily see or just kind of like push back sometimes when maybe I was being too negative kind of bringing that positive energy we needed. So it's been a lot of fun. But with that being said, since you've been making me do it the last couple episodes might be my last time to ever do it on this podcast. Casey, if you're disappointed the seasons over, but excited about what the future could hold for this team, hit me with those three words. Let's go fever.