INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 The WNBA regular season is winding down, and Indiana Fever All-Star Caitlin Clark still has yet to make her return after injuring her right groin in July.<\/p>\n
The team officially ruled Clark out for Tuesday night\u2019s game against the Phoenix Mercury. The Fever have just four games left in the regular season. Currently, Indiana is holding on to the eighth and final playoff spot in the WNBA standings, a half game back from the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries and two games ahead of the Los Angeles Sparks.<\/p>\n
Head coach Stephanie White said early last week that Clark will need multiple practices before returning to the Fever\u2019s starting lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see her live in practice,\u201d White said on what she needs to see from Clark before her return. \u201cI want to see her continue to work to not just build endurance but to be able to handle contact 94 feet as it\u2019s going to be in-game and to be able to do that and to sustain from an endurance standpoint. That\u2019s going to take multiple practices to make sure there\u2019s no regression.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said a couple weeks ago that she hoped to have Clark back before the end of the regular season. <\/p>\n
White clarified that Clark doesn\u2019t necessarily have to participate in multiple team practices to prove her endurance. \u201cBeing able to put together 3s, 4s and different things that we can go against and matchup with\u201d is what White said could be used instead of those few team practices that remain.<\/p>\n
Tuesday will be the 28th regular season game that Clark will miss this season. She also missed the Fever\u2019s win in the Commissioner\u2019s Cup championship game, as well as the All-Star Game and Three-Point Contest during All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
Clark has averaged 16.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 8.8 assists per game in 13 games played this season.<\/p>\n
Clark has also dealt with a left quad injury and a left groin injury this season.<\/p>\n
The Fever are 8-5 with Clark this season and 13-14 without her during the regular season. The Fever also beat the Minnesota Lynx without Clark to win the Commissioner\u2019s Cup.<\/p>\n
Indiana tips off against the Mercury in Phoenix at 10 p.m. Eastern Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 The WNBA regular season is winding down, and Indiana Fever All-Star Caitlin Clark still has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":154743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-192869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115132076138316196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}