The Indiana Fever suffered a blowout loss to the Portland Fire on Saturday night, in large part due to its struggles on the defensive side of the ball. Now, it sounds like the team is doing everything it can to come together and address those concerns.
During an interview with the media on Tuesday, Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham revealed that the team had a long meeting where they came together and addressed some of the issues that have been plaguing the team, leading to the back-to-back losses.
While she did not share too many specifics about what was discussed during the meeting, Cunningham did admit that the team has been playing “too soft,” and needs to get that corrected.
Fever Had Team Meeting
Cunningham said that the Fever’s players and coaches had a “long” and blunt meeting where everyone was able to speak their mind and make sure that everyone is on the same page going forward. She said the meeting went for “almost two hours.”
“We had a team meeting [Monday] — a long meeting — and so hopefully we’ve kind of turned the page,” Cunningham said via ESPN. “I think we were in there an hour and a half, almost two hours, and we built back all the layers. I think everyone’s on a good page right now and ready to work. We’ll say it started [as a] coaches [meeting] and then ended up being players. It was much needed, though.”
Fever head coach Stephanie White said that the meeting did not go quite as long as Cunningham let on, but she did confirm that the meeting took place. And Cunningham thinks that it was necessary, even if it was uncomfortable.
“No one wants to have these meetings, but everyone, every team has them,” Cunningham said. “Everyone has trials, everyone has shortcomings, and I’m just thankful ours is at the beginning of the season and not during September, October.
“We didn’t even watch film [from the Portland game]. That tells you how bad it is, because normally she [White] is watching every second of it. We wanted to flush that one. Everyone knew it was bad. We all kind of watched it on our own, and it’s just unacceptable. We’re too good to be playing like that.”
‘Too Soft Right Now’
As for making actual adjustments that will lead to improvement on the defensive side of the ball, Cunningham thinks it’s mostly a matter of just making sure that everyone is on the same page and playing “tough” while admitting that the team is currently “too soft.”
“We have all the pieces we need [to win], but it’s knowing your role, owning your role and also just being tough,” Cunningham said. “We’re just too soft right now, and that’s not what our identity is, so we need to get away from that.”
As for how that happens, White thinks that the players are playing with a lack of confidence, not effort.
“Oftentimes when you see a ‘lack of effort,’ a lot of it is just indecision, right?” she said. “It’s paralysis by analysis.”
We’ll have to see whether or not the Fever can correct these issues ahead of Thursday night’s game against the Atlanta Fever.
About Dave Kelsey
Contributing author to The Comeback.