WNBA Finals: With the Series Tied, Fever Looking to Close out on Their Home Turf

The road to Game 3 of this year’s WNBA Finals hasn’t been an easy one for the Indiana Fever.

To be quite honest, they weren’t the favorites to beat newly appointed MVP Elena Delle Donne and the Chicago Sky in Round 1, let alone the No. 1 seeded New York Liberty for the Eastern Conference title. Yet that is the beauty of this obsession we have called sports, and after proving their doubters wrong, the ladies are two home wins away from reclaiming the WNBA Title.

Fresh off of shocking the New York Liberty with a 66-51 win to claim the East, the Fever kept the momentum going into Game 1 of the finals in Minneapolis, defeating the Lynx 75-69. Guard Briann January showed up big for the Fever with a season high of 19 points, along with six assists and two steals.

“She’s just playing with a different poise,” Indiana head coach Stephanie White said when asked about January’s Game 1 performance, per Josh Zavadil of WNBA.com. “She’s playing at a different pace, and she’s reading her options and understanding and knowing when to take her shot, when to attack the rim, when to find her teammates. It’s been her growth process. I thought she was, again, exceptional.”

Game 2, however, took a different turn, where the Lynx got into a groove to protect home court in a grueling victory of 77-71 over the Fever.

This game was especially frustrating for Indiana. Team leader Tamika Catchings got into serious foul trouble in the third quarter, sending her to the bench just as the team began to regain momentum. Sylvia Fowles showed up in a big way for the Lynx with 21 points and eight rebounds before heading to the bench with her fifth foul late in the third quarter.

Here we saw superstar Maya Moore pick up where Fowles left off, leading the offense for the remainder of the game and finishing with 19 points, five assists and eight rebounds.

White was especially frustrated at the officiating of Game 2, making her feelings very vocal during the postgame interview, as reported by WNBA.com:

"

Well, I guess first and foremost I learned a valuable lesson today. I learned that it pays to go public with comments about officials. Who would have known that? Because this game was a blood bath. I’ve never seen a player of Tamika Catchings’ caliber get so disrespected in my life, never. And to me, that’s a travesty. That’s a travesty.

"

However, Catchings has a better outlook for Game 3 and promises that Indiana will be fully prepared this time around:

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The best fans in the WNBA are going to be in the house. And we’re going to come and we’re going to be ready. I told our team and we told our team, we are going to bottle up every sense of frustration, every sense of anger, every sense of knowing what we didn’t do and what we didn’t accomplish tonight, put that in a bottle and let it explode when we get back home.

"

Tonight, the momentum shifts to Bankers Life Fieldhouse as “Fever Friday” (declared by Mayor Greg Ballard) takes over Indianapolis. A packed-out crowd is expected tonight, especially since the Pacers, Colts, and former Fever head coach Lin Dunn have purchased and given away a mass amount of tickets to make sure all fans attend and show out.

With a combination of a loyal crowd, pent-up frustration and championship experience, the Fever may very well pull a repeat of the 2012 WNBA Finals, walking away with the coveted title by the fourth-quarter buzzer on Sunday.

Game 3 of the WNBA Finals airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN 2.