The first time the Indiana Fever visited the New York Liberty, Head Coach Christie Sides just needed somebody to listen to her.
Her Fever were just 0-2 after a rocky preseason, but it felt much worse than that. It wasn’t just that they looked discombobulated, but often unprepared for the arrival of Caitlin Clark and inevitable re-jiggering of their offense around her.
In that pregame presser on May 18, Sides didn’t explain but insisted that they needed time to gel, seemingly aware of the noise around her team’s 0-2 start, some of it warranted, some of it unfair.