Sue Bird Reveals Why Indiana Fever Are Primed For WNBA Playoff Success
The Indiana Fever have looked like one of the WNBA's best teams since the league's month-long Paris 2024 Olympics break ended.
Caitlin Clark commanding the Fever's fast-paced offensive attack has produced dominant results, and Indiana's roster appears to be improving with each game played together.
This has caught the attention of WNBA legend Sue Bird, whose four WNBA Championships with the Seattle Storm show that she knows what success in the postseason requires.
Hence why it turned heads when Bird mentioned the Fever when asked which teams she wouldn't want to see in the 2024 WNBA Playoffs if she was still a player during a recent episode of "A Touch More: The Podcast".
“What I’ve learned in my WNBA experience is pace of play trumps physicality, it trumps size, it can trump experience," Bird said. "In 2018 and 2020, the years [the Storm] won, that was our whole mantra: pace, pace, pace, pace, pace.
"And what I see in Caitlin, what I see in Kelsey Mitchell, they’re just ramming it down people’s throats. And it's really hard. It can have your head spinning," she added.
One of the teams Sue Bird would not want to see during the WNBA playoffs ?
— Vanshay Murdock 🎥🎥 (@VanshayM) August 21, 2024
The Indiana Fever!
“What I’ve learned in my WNBA experience is pace of play trumps physicality, it trumps size, it can trump experience… what I see in Caitlin, what I see in Kelsey Mitchell, they’re… pic.twitter.com/ObSYwowVgk
Bird then went on to note that Clark, "is going to break records nonstop for the next couple years."
In addition, she added, "I wouldn't be surprised if, as the season gets later, into like playoff runs, if you start to see teams [picking Clark up full court] more, and you're definitely going to see it in the playoffs."
Bird has been an outspoken advocate for Clark throughout her rookie season in the WNBA. And now she's asserting that her Fever squad will be a tough out this postseason.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.