Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY
By
January Nelson
A historic night for the WNBA.
Caitlin Clark dropped 45 points on the Seattle Storm on Friday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the most by any Indiana player in a regular season game. The old mark was 38, set twice by teammate Kelsey Mitchell.
He did it the night after suffering a knee-to-the-quad contusion in a loss to Golden State, a song he never got the whistle on. The call came during a season when teammate Sophie Cunningham publicly said the WNBA and its representatives “did absolutely nothing to protect” Clark from the cheap shots she took game after game.
He shot 11 of 18 from the field, 6 of 10 from three, and 17 of 19 from the line, adding 10 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks in a 110-107 comeback win.
The double-double made her the first player in WNBA history with 40 points and 10 assists in the same game. It was his third 30-10 game of the season and fourth of his career. No other player in league history has more than one.
He also became the fastest player to 200 in three careers, reaching the mark in his 74th game. She is just the 11th player to score 45 points in a WNBA game.
The fourth quarter belonged to him. With the score tied at 102, she fed Monique Billings an and-1, then buried a 25-foot stepback, her sixth of the night, to take the lead with 39.1 seconds left. Moments later he sacked Flau’jae Johnson and blocked him from going forward.
Clark refused to stay. “There was no way I was going to leave the game in the fourth quarter,” he said. “It didn’t matter (what happened) I was going to play with one leg.”
Coach Stephanie White’s reaction to the box score was two words: “Holy s—!” Teammate Makayla Timpson called it “just great.” Clark held up the records: “I really don’t care.”
Mitchell added 30 of her own, making her and Clark the first WNBA teammates to post 40-point and 30-point games in the same contest.
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