Some nights a player simply cannot miss. For Caitlin Clark, this was one of them, and by the end she had a line the WNBA had never recorded before.
The night
Clark scored 45 points and handed out 10 assists as the Indiana Fever beat the Seattle Storm, 110-107, becoming the first player in league history to reach 40 points and 10 assists in the same game. She did it in fewer than 30 minutes, playing under a minutes restriction because of a back injury, and was nearly flawless: she made all but two of her 19 free throws, buried six three-pointers, and added four steals and two blocks.
"Didn't matter, I would play with one leg," Clark said of the injury, according to ESPN. Her coach, Stephanie White, described the disbelief of tallying it up afterward: looking at the stat sheet, she said, it was hard to believe the numbers were real.
A pile of records
The 45 points set a Fever franchise record. In the same game, Clark became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 200 career three-pointers, hitting the mark in 74 games, according to reporting on the game. She was not even alone in the record book that night: teammate Kelsey Mitchell added 30 points, making her and Clark the first WNBA teammates to score 40 and 30 in the same game.
Why it matters
Clark arrived in the league as the most hyped player in its history, and games like this are why. The WNBA has drawn record crowds and television audiences during her young career, and a 40-point, 10-assist masterpiece, produced in less than a full game's worth of minutes, is exactly the kind of night that keeps the spotlight fixed on the league. For the Storm, on the wrong end of history, it was a loss in a difficult stretch. For everyone else, it was a reminder of how high the ceiling is for a player who is still just getting started.
