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July 16, 2009

Fever rise above Sky

Indiana topples Chicago for 10th straight victory

By Justin Albers, For The Herald Bulletin

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Fever players are never satisfied.

For that matter, neither is their coach.

They proved that once again on Wednesday afternoon when they extended a franchise-record winning streak to 10 games by knocking off a pesky Chicago Sky team 84-74 in front of an announced matinee crowd of 10,052 at Conseco Fieldhouse.

The streak is good for seventh best in WNBA history and it comes in the Fever’s 10th year as a franchise.

“Ten and 10 today, huh? I didn’t realize that,” said Fever coach Lin Dunn. “Our players are playing hard and we’re playing defense. The winning streak is great for our fans. Fans love records, they love to talk about things like this, but what we’ve got to talk about it is the next quarter of the next game.”

Tammy Sutton-Brown continued her hot play by scoring a game-high 22 points on nearly flawless 10-of-11 shooting. She has scored 69 points over the last four games while making 62 percent of her field goal attempts (28-of-45) during that stretch.

“Let’s give Tammy credit. She has worked awful hard, she’s running the floor as well as she’s run it in years, and she’s demanding the basketball,” Dunn said. “I think what she’s doing now by hitting the 10- and 12-footers and blending it with the post game is huge for her.”

While Sutton-Brown was huge on the offensive end for the Fever (10-2), she certainly wasn’t alone.

Ebony Hoffman (18 points), Tamika Catchings (16 points) and Katie Douglas (13 points) also scored in double figures for Indiana, which has been extremely balanced all season.

Catchings and Douglas, who were both voted All-Star starters in the Eastern Conference, set up their teammates more than themselves, combining for 16 of the 26 Fever assists. Included in those assists were three consecutive from Catchings to Hoffman late in the first half.

“We are playing really well together,” Sutton-Brown said. “It is not just one or two people doing this; we have several in double figures every game. That indicates how good we are at each position.”

Indiana was also solid on the defensive end.

The Fever, which came into the game leading the league in points allowed, scored 25 points off 21 Chicago turnovers. The Sky had more first-half miscues (15) than they did field goals (12) or rebounds (14).

Indiana held only a 33-31 lead with 3:16 remaining in the second quarter before turning up the defensive intensity. The Fever outscored Chicago 10-2 heading into halftime, which proved to be a critical stretch in the outcome of the game. The two teams were even (41-41) in the second half.

“I thought our defense in crunch time was good,” Dunn said. “We got stops when we needed to.”

Catchings agreed.

“I think the one great thing that we’ve been doing is playing defense,” said Catchings, who was credited with six steals. “Our defense has done a tremendous job and that’s one thing that we keep focusing on. We might not shoot the ball very well, but one thing we can do is play defense and force the other team into turnovers.”

Candice Dupree, who will join Catchings and Douglas as an All-Star starter, led the Sky with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Rookie Kristi Toliver (Maryland) added 13 points off the bench and Ben Davis High School graduate Shyra Ely had nine points in only 11 minutes of action.

Fowles still hurting

Chicago forward Sylvia Fowles, who will start for the East in the All-Star game next week, was out of the lineup due to a right shoulder injury. She missed the game against the Fever last Friday night because of a sore right knee.

Hoffman reaches milestone

Fever forward Ebony Hoffman became only the fourth player in franchise history to score at least 1,000 points with her first field goal of the game. Tamika Catchings, Natalie Williams and Tan White were the others.

Record crowd

The announced attendance of 10,052 was the most for a Fever home game since the 2008 opener.

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