Caitlin Clark to return vs Aces, Stephanie White explains injury situation
Caitlin Clark will return on Sunday.
LAS VEGAS – Hello from Las Vegas, where the Indiana Fever are set to battle the Aces in about 4.5 hours.
Caitlin Clark will be playing after missing the team's most recent outing in Phoenix. That was a back-to-back, and Clark was listed as out for rest. She played the night before but missed about two weeks of action in between.
Tony East
With Clark back in the fold, head coach Stephanie White fielded questions about her injury status and situation before the Fever practiced in Las Vegas. Here are those questions, and answers, in full to provide the most possible context.
Some edits for clarity and brevity, but video of the full interview is posted below
Stephanie White: [Caitlin Clark] is going to be available (vs Las Vegas). She's going to be on a minutes restriction, around 20 to 25. So we'll see what that looks like. But she will be available and able to play. Still with a minutes restriction.
Tony East: Do you expect the same kind of minutes distribution by quarter compared to her last game in Los Angeles?
(Note: Clark played 15:39 in that game)
Stephanie White: No, because that's 10 more minutes a game than we had the last time. So, I think you can go for longer periods. I think the biggest thing is when you haven't done anything really for a couple of weeks, it's endurance. It's building endurance, it's efficiency, it's getting back in rhythm, getting back with timing and flow and all of those things. And trying to expand the longer periods of time for sure.
Tony East: Is she practicing today?
Stephanie White: Yes.
Tony East: What was the reason for the injury listing of "rest" versus "back" for the last game [in Phoenix]? Was it because it was a back-to-back? Was her back a factor at all? How did that come to pass for her injury listing?
(Note: Clark was listed as out for "rest" instead of "back" in Phoenix)
Stephanie White: Yeah, I think it's all those things. The training staff, as always, we want to be conservative and think about the long-term health and wellness. And understanding the physical demands that a back-to-back, and with travel, comes into play. And knowing that she hadn't really done anything for a couple of weeks. Oftentimes when you're coming back from injury, fatigue is also a factor, and building endurance is also a factor. And when you're fatigued, you have a tendency to get hurt. So I do think that it's just being cautious, making sure we put the long-term health and wellness as a priority.
A Fever official: I'll just add – the (injury) designation, that was our decision because it was a premeditated rest decision. We didn't want it to seem like her back flared up again. So it was to state that it was a scheduled rest.
Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star: In terms of the minutes distribution, how do you anticipate using those minutes against the Aces?
Stephanie White: It depends on how she feels and how she looks. Certainly, you want to try to expand the times that she's on the floor together without having long periods of time where you're sitting and you're getting stiff. Some of that will be collaborating with her and her just letting us know how she feels. Some of that will be trying to objectively look at how her movement patterns are and how she's moving. And some of it will be strategy based on having her for the fourth quarter, saving some minutes for the fourth quarter, saving some minutes for the second half.
Tony East: I'm sure if the back not tightening up is a part of that minutes plan, you ask the medical staff for some input there. How much does Caitlin's input matter in that case? Or do you have to be cautious and not let her try to play through it too often?
Stephanie White: It matters. It matters because I think more than anything, over the last 18 months, she's learned so much about her body, right? She's competitive, she wants to play. She wants to be out there. There's no doubt about that. And of course we want her to be out there. I think there are times where you have to try to save a player from themselves when they want to do too much. And that's where it's looking at efficiency, looking at fatigue, looking at movement patterns. But also she's really grown in her ability to learn her body and know, 'Hey, I need one', or talk to the training staff, or something doesn't feel right. So I think it's all collaborative and making sure that everybody's on the same page.
Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star: You talked about her learning her body. Just over a year ago, she talked about how she doesn't believe in minutes restrictions. That's obviously changed now. Her learning her body and just going through all these injuries, how has that changed her thoughts on minutes restrictions?
Stephanie White: Well, I know I often say this, but there's no substitute for experience. You don't know what you don't know. And when you haven't been injured, and when you haven't gone through it, and again, you think about last year, [it] was the first year that we played 44 games. 44 games again this year. And now we have a break for the World Cup, so games are even more condensed and compressed. There's so much that goes into it than just, 'Okay, I want to play. Okay, we're going to be out there. Okay, we're going to throw her out there'. There's a lot more from a sports science standpoint than that. But I think she's grown a lot in that. And again, it's part of growing up. It's part of learning to be a pro. It's part of her understanding her body. And I think when you're young and you haven't had an injury, you don't quite understand how everything is connected. I was joking the other day that I wanted to play the skeleton song. You know, the hip bone's connected to the knee bone, the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, like that. Because it is all connected, and it's important. And different beds, different pillows, travel. All of those things affect it.
You can watch the first ~4.5 minutes of the video below to see this exchange. Also, I wrote about the first half of the Fever's season for IX Basketball, check it out.
Thank you for reading. I hope this provided some clarity. I'll be at Fever vs Aces tonight, so expect a story after that game right here. Sign up and it will be emailed directly to you.
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