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Stephanie White Makes Proposal After Fever Loss Without Caitlin Clark

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Parker Johnson | Last updated Jun 11, 2025 8:11 AM ET

The Indiana Fever dropped to 4-5 on the season with a 77-58 road loss to the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday.

The fifth game in a row without star point guard Caitlin Clark, who is dealing with a quad injury, was the Fever's worst performance yet. In fact, the 58 points they scored were the franchise's lowest output since 2017.

Offense was not the only problem, as Indiana got bullied by a physical Atlanta team anchored by 6-foot-9 center Brittney Griner. The Dream outrebounded the Fever 44-27 and outscored them in the paint by a 46-28 margin in the 19-point victory.

The comprehensive defeat left head coach Stephanie White to make a unique proposal to fix her team's issues.

In her postgame press conference, White addressed a perceived lack of toughness in her team with a blunt suggestion to throw more adversity at the players.

"We've got to get the guys we practice against to continue to beat the (expletive) out of us, right, to be physical and make things difficult for us and we've got to be able to handle that," she said.

"We got to get the guys we practice against to continue to beat the s*** out of us."

Stephanie White got straight to the point following the Fever's loss pic.twitter.com/p3tN1y9fRk
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) June 11, 2025

Some fans took White's comments as a jab at the officiating, but the Dream were called for six more fouls than the Fever in the game (22-16).

Like many collegiate and professional teams, Indiana uses male practice players to provide stiff competition and simulate the physicality of the WNBA.

Clark, who scored 22 points in 2 minutes against helpless practice players during a legendary scrimmage at Iowa, went viral during the 2025 preseason for owning one of the Fever's male practice players.