Indiana Fever hand over a 92-84 defeat to the Atlanta Dream - WNBA Recap
On Saturday night Indiana Fever and Atlanta Dream opened their accounts in the 16th WNBA season here at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Indiana put up a strong display early and claimed a 15 points lead in the opening half that helped them to sustain a second half comeback by Atlanta, who lost 92-84.
Indiana were led by Katie Douglas with 21 points while Tamika Catchings tallied 16 points and had 7 boards. Catchings, a 4 times defensive player of the year award winner, played for the 1st time as a power forward and reiterated after the game that she will do whatever her team needs her to;
"Whatever the team needs me to do, I'm going to do," Catchings said. "It's a good transition. If I can learn and get comfortable there, and I'm already comfortable playing on the wing, it just adds to the all-around game."
Jessica Davenport chipped in with a double-double she netted 12 points and had 10 boards while Shavonte Zellous and Briann January shared 11 apiece for Fever.
Indiana were good from the free throw line as they connected 83.3% and in contrast Atlanta shot 75.0%. Angel McCoughtry scored a game high 26 points for them while Sancho Lyttle came up with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds. Lindsey Harding also netted 16 points for Dream.
Indiana claimed a 10-6 advantage early in the opening frame and stretched it to 20-12. With 5 unanswered points Atlanta trimmed that down to 20-17, but Fever rebutted that with an 8-nothing spurt and augmented their lead to 28-17. Ketia Swanier concluded the frame with a long ranger (her only 3 points in the game) for Dream and reduced the gap to 28-20.
Courtney Paris opened Atlanta’s account in the 2nd period with a layup and trimmed down the lead to 28-22. However Fever pulled off a huge 19-8 run widening the gap to 47-30 and the end of 1st half Atlanta were trailing by 47-32.
With 06:12 remaining in the third, Indiana were leading by 55-41 but their lead started to dwindle afterwards. Atlanta trimmed down the double-digit lead to 58-55 with a 14-3 run.
The Fever response was quick and came in the form of a16-5 burst as the host enetered the last frame with a 74-60 lead.
Dream needed a huge comeback to make a game of it in the fourth and they certainly played with desperation, reducing the lead to 84-77. They came within four a minute later, but Fever held their nerve to seal the game.
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