No one claimed it’d be easy.
Atlanta made a fourth-quarter run, but eight straight points from Tamika Catchings helped Indiana hold off the Dream 103-88 Sunday and force a decisive Game 3 in the WNBA Eastern Conference semifinals on Tuesday at Indiana.
The Dream had closed a 17-point deficit to 82-75 with 7:02 left following a Sancho Lyttle layup that capped a 10-0 run and momentum was on their side.
But Catchings had an answer. Only 1-of-4 on 3-pointers until then, she nailed 3’s on consecutive possessions to push the lead back out to 88-75.
Following an Atlanta timeout with 6:18 left, she added one more layup to extend the lead back to 15 and effectively end the Dream’s bid at ending the series at home.
“I credit my teammates for constantly encouraging me, constantly motivating me and telling me, ‘Next one’s gonna go in. Next one’s gonna go in. Don’t stop shooting,’” Catchings said. “After that first one right before the half, it’s like, ‘OK, I got this.’”
That, she did, pouring in a franchise-record 18 fourth-quarter points en route to a game-high 25 that enabled Indiana to stay alive in this series. Her personal 8-0 run provided the momentum, halting the comeback for the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion Dream.
“Them having some veteran players like that. With Tamika, they can generate some things like that for them in transition and also one-on-one situations,” Atlanta coach Fred Williams said of the 17-4 run that put the game away. “I just felt like we made a run, made a push, really played through some things that didn’t go our way. And this is where we’re at.”
The outcome could have been somewhere different, though. It was a close game early in the second half that was very much undecided. When Atlanta’s Erika DeSouza made a layup with 7:44 left in the third quarter, it was 51-50 Indiana.
Four minutes later, a 16-4 Fever run had turned their one-point lead into a 13-point advantage and the Dream never again pulled closer than seven.
One of the biggest differences for the Fever was the inside game, where Atlanta was outscored 42-24. If the Dream couldn’t seem to match Indiana, Williams said the effort was there.
“I felt like we came out and battled the first half and into the third quarter some …” Williams said. “Indiana came out firing, hitting some shots they didn’t hit in Game One. But they hit them this game.”
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