Caitlin Clark is taking some lessons away from her real first taste of WNBA regular season action.
Clark walked away from the Indiana Fever’s 71-92 loss to Connecticut with a team-high 20 points — but she also committed 10 turnovers, the most in a career debut in WNBA history. It took her until well into the fifth minute of the second quarter to score as she adjusted to the Sun’s defense.
"I'm disappointed, and nobody likes to lose, but I don't think you can beat yourself up too much about one game," Clark said after the game. "I don't think that's going to help this team.
"Just learn from it and move on," she added.
It was Clark’s "Welcome to the W" moment, as many veterans alluded to prior to her debut. Clark admitted that the game was "physical," and that she’s growing to expect that more than she did in college.
"Just expecting physicality was the biggest thing,” she said. "I think also just like some uncharacteristic stuff. Like, I pick up the ball and travel, I dribble off my foot, I pass it on the inbound, I turn it over. So just a few things that are just — you have to be crisper.
"I thought it took me a little while to settle into the game. I felt the second half was a lot better... but just getting more comfortable... that's just going to come with experience."
Even still, Clark finished with 20 points — a solid debut for a rookie despite the turnovers. As for Indiana, Fever coach Christie Sides was critical of her team after the loss. NaLyssa Smith was the only other player in double-digits.
"They punched us in the mouth tonight," Sides said, before offering a more stout analysis.
"We got to have people coming back to the ball and then attacking getting in the paint," she continued. "We just weren't able to get down to yield tonight at all. If we could have gotten our feet in the paint and collapsed their defense, we would have been able to, you know, get some of our shooters. We just didn't get that."