WNBA RECAP

Indiana Fever at New York Liberty | July 18, 2010

Madison Square Garden | New York, N.Y.

                                                1st        2nd       3rd       4th        OT        Final

Indiana Fever (13-7)                   16         22         18         17         11         84        

New York Liberty (9-10)              18         19         14         22         8          81                    

Notes:

• In the fifth overtime game between the Liberty and Fever since 2004 (all in New York), Indiana outlasted New York, 84-81, to win for the third time in its last five games. It was the Fever’s fourth straight road win over the Liberty. New York snapped win streaks of two games overall and three at The Garden.

• With the Indiana win and with Washington’s loss to Chicago this afternoon, Indiana assumes first place in the Eastern Conference by just percentage points (Indiana 13-7, .650; Atlanta 14-8, .636; Washington 12-7, .632).

• In the overtime, Catchings’ 3-pointer gave Indiana a 78-75 lead that it never relinquished. Indiana led by as many as five, 80-75, before the Liberty trimmed the Fever advantage to one, 82-81. Pondexter missed a running jumper with four seconds remaining, however, and after Catchings pulled down the rebound, she hit a pair of free throws to ice the win.

• Cappie Pondexter scored a career-high 40 points, scoring nearly half the Liberty’s total. She finished 14-of-21 from the floor with five 3-pointers.

• Catchings scored nine of the Fever’s 11 points in the overtime, hitting both shot attempts and adding four free throws. Catchings led Indiana with 22 points and 10 rebounds. Katie Douglas added 21 and Ebony Hoffman added 15 points and matched a season-high with eight boards.

• Pondexter missed a baseline jumper sandwiched in the middle of a Fever double team with 9.9 seconds remaining in regulation, but Tully Bevilaqua got her first rebound in two games to set up Indiana’s final possession. Briann January’s running jumper missed at the buzzer.

• New York took its first lead of the second half on Leilani Mitchell’s 3-pointer with 3:14 remaining and led by as many as five, 71-66, but Catchings’ 3-pointer with 50 seconds remaining knotted score at 73. It was the Liberty’s first lead since 1:42 in the first half.

• Douglas and Hoffman combined to score 18 of Indiana’s 20 points during a 12:06 span between the third and fourth quarters.

Quotes:

Fever guard Katie Douglas: “Cappie was on her game. She was in a zone. We were trying to limit her touches – really, we were trying – but she hit everything she threw up there. We knew we had to continue playing good defense. I’m proud of how we held together. Things are clicking right now, people are where they’re supposed to be and we got big stops when we needed them.”

Fever forward Tamika Catchings: “We played like we needed to, to win, and we took care of defense when we needed it most.”

Fever coach Lin Dunn: “This was a really outstanding win for us. We gave up our lead, but we knew they would keep it close. They’re too good. I thought we played really well defensively; we even held Cappie to 40! We did play good defense, though, and we got the big stops when we needed them. Tamika was great down the stretch for us, she just sets a tone. We didn’t give [New York] anything easily. We stopped them when we needed to and really got a great road win.”