Fever's Daunting End-of-Season Schedule Adds Another Challenge to Indiana's Plate

Tankathon's model shows Indiana to have the hardest strength of schedule remaining, their final nine games coming against opponents with an average winning percentage of .593. That includes three tilts with the 28-5 Lynx, who are currently on pace to set a new WNBA single-season wins record.

A west coast swing in the season's penultimate week -- three games against the Los Angeles Sparks, Golden State Valkyries, and Phoenix Mercury -- looms as another test, followed soon after by a matchup against rookie standout Sopnia Citron and the Washington Mystics.

Fever Brace for Grueling Stretch Amid Tight WNBA Playoff Race

An imposing schedule is just the latest in a long list of obstacles that beset the Fever to close out the season.

Indiana announced Tuesday afternoon that 28-year-old guard Sophie Cunningham will miss the remainder of the season with a torn right MCL after a collision in Sunday's matchup against the Connecticut Sun.

Cunningham is the third Fever guard to suffer a season-ending injury in the last two weeks, joining Aari McDonald and Sydney Colson, who both went down with lower-body injuries on August 7.

With star guard Caitlin Clark still working her way back from a right groin injury, that's four major members of the Fever backcourt on the shelf as Indiana stares down a grueling upcoming stretch.

Unfortunately, they won't have much room for error, smack-dab in the middle of a jam-packed race for the WNBA playoffs.

Minnesota became the first team to clinch a playoff berth this season, defeating the New York Liberty en route to their sixth consecutive win on Saturday. That leaves nine teams jostling for seven postseason spots, and very little breathing room all the way around.

Just six games separate the second-place Atlanta Dream from the 10th-place Mystics. Near the top, the Dream, Liberty, Mercury, and Aces are jockeying within a game and a half of each other for the No. 2 seed. At the cutoff line, Los Angeles and Washington are breathing down the neck of the Seattle Storm, each a half-game shy of the final playoff spot.

Thanks to Sunday's comeback effort over the Sun, Indiana sits sixth in the standings, 3.5 games behind the Dream and 2.5 games up on the Sparks and Mystics.

If the Fever close out the season strong -- and perhaps clinch a series win over Phoenix -- Indiana could find themselves with home-court advantage heading into the first round of the WNBA playoffs. But a late-season tailspin could just as easily knock them out of the postseason picture entirely.

Of the two, it's the latter that feels dreadfully plausible.

Indiana's only two wins since losing McDonald and Colson have come against the 8-25 Chicago Sky and 6-27 Connecticut. Not to mention, it took a heroic 38-point outing from Kesley Mitchell to erase a 21-point deficit and squeak past the last-place Sun in overtime.

In that same span, the Fever fell 81-80 to the 9-26 Dallas Wings and lost by four points to the Mystics. Now they're without Cunningham, who was averaging 12.4 PPG in the 15 games leading up to her injury and had become a mainstay in the starting lineup.

Clark's potential return is an obvious X factor, but without a concrete timetable, it's hard to project when she'll rejoin the lineup, if at all.

Indiana's next two games come in the form of a home-and-home against the Lynx. Star forward Napheesa Collier may still be sidelined, but Minnesota hasn’t missed a beat, going 4-0 since the MVP favorite went down with an ankle sprain.

With or without Collier, it's hard to see Indiana taking either of those games if Clark can't suit up.

And while Minnesota may be the most formidable challenge, they're far from the only one. Eight of Indiana's final nine games come against teams in the playoff hunt, the lone exception being a September 5 meeting with the Sky. Every other contest carries the do-or-die urgency of a tight postseason race.

It's not that the Fever can't make the playoffs, but it sure does feel like everything is working against them.