The Underrated

The Indiana Fever Have A Christie Sides Problem??

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Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 13 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

What's up North America, I'm Dave Dubon welcome to the underrated pod on today's show we ask the question, do the Indiana fever have a Christi side's problem that is today's topic. Now, the internet certainly went nuts the other night after Christi sides and the Indiana fever won a game they won a game by nine points at home against the phoenix mercury 95 86 was the final but the story that everybody gleamed on to was the fact that they gave up or nearly gave up a 31 point lead in the fourth quarter. Now I watched this entire game and I can tell you exactly what happened and I can also tell you whether or not Christi sides actually had coaching malpractice that was one of my favorite lines that I actually saw pop up as a result of last night's game. All right, before we get into all of that, let's play some video from the post game press conference. Here's Christi sides are so three players 20 plus points and also three players double doubles when you have that type of production from four different players. What does that say about the kind of well roundedness of the scene? Right now I mean that's incredible that that just shows like what we're capable of. For me right now it's given up 36 points in 11 minutes so that's what we've got to figure out. You know I haven't been here when we've been up 31 points and when you do that you have to figure out a way to hold that and just finish the game. So that is where as a coach that's where I'm at but to have players that can put up those many points and be able to rebound the basketball. So that was Christi sides and you know I have to say you know one of the big problems with Christi's eyes as a head coach of this Indiana fever team is her inability to not throw her own players under the bus. I mean she does it on a regular basis. Sometimes it's directly, sometimes it's indirectly. That was sort of an example of an indirect shot at her actual players. The truth of the matter is what happened in the game yesterday or I should say last night was pretty simple when the fourth quarter started. The Phoenix Mercury absolutely took advantage of the Indiana fever zone that they were attempting to run to the point where Christi sides should have called a timeout and actually made the appropriate adjustments. Look basketball or at least the modern era of basketball both in the college ranks as well as the NBA and certainly we see this in the WNBA now as well is simply to say what used to be a safe lead never seems to be safe anymore and the reason for that is adjustments by good coaches in the respective leagues that they actually play in. That certainly occurred with the Phoenix Mercury who by the way were just extremely short handed last night I mean Tarazi didn't play a cloud was out, Sutton was out, Osborne was out and then of course during the game Brittany Griner ended up getting hurt and didn't play for the majority of the game. This was clearly an opportunity for a young Indiana fever team to win the game which they ended up doing. The big issue though was Kalia Cooper who scored 20 points into the fourth quarter. Now go back and watch the game and then while you're watching the fourth quarter of this particular game pretend you are Christi sides the head coach of the Indiana fever. What kind of adjustments would you make to actually solve the problem of this particular comeback as it was actually happening. Now the fever did end up winning the fever had three players with over 20 points. We're going to play a little bit more Christi sides video for you. The first video is her talking about Kelsey Mitchell and the second video is her talking about Caitlin Clark. So much of the buzz surrounding this team but for Kelsey to consistently go out there and score like she does and play at such a high level what do you just have to say about her effort and her production this year. Kelsey is one of those dynamic guards in this league, one of the best guards in this league. She is playing so efficient right now with the players that are around her. She comes in as a pro, she is a pro professional basketball player and does her job every day. Really proud of her consistency what she's done for us but yeah just a dynamic, dynamic guard that can get down heel, create and then finish it from real, kick to shooters that she just collapses the defense. That's a quote. Yeah Caitlin had another 13 assists tonight just seemed like she was making some really remarkable passes. Did you notice maybe a step up or more dynamic passes just improvement from the aspect of her game? Yeah Caitlin had another 13 assists tonight just seemed like she was making some really remarkable passes, did you notice maybe a step up or more dynamic passes just improvement from the aspect of her game? Yeah I don't know if it's more dynamic or more, I think she just does what she does. I mean she's got the ability to draw several defenders and she is kind of a crazy offer for her teammates and where they are and moving and it would make passes that some people you know in the first half my gosh she dropped two down to suppose players. I don't know who made that pass, I mean that's just what she's capable of. So what Christie sides has actually gotten better at throughout the season is actually giving some roses if you will to her players when they actually play well. Look Kelsey Mitchell's you know hell of addition to this particular team with all Kelsey Mitchell on this team I don't think that Beaver would be exactly where they're at right now which is 10 wins and 14 losses they head up to Minnesota on Sunday and have an extremely tough matchup with the Minnesota links and then they finish off this portion of the season in Dallas against the wings Kelsey Mitchell certainly been a key component and it's good to see Christie sides actually you know point out the positives that she has on her team I mean she talked about Caitlyn Clark's passing ability and I think Caitlyn Clark's passing ability as a player in the WNBA is often overshadowed by her ability to shoot the three. Caitlyn Clark is a true point guard and so many people out there who are just casual fans quite frankly don't really understand what that is watch Caitlyn Clark she's an absolute general on the basketball court it's also one of the reasons she's not scoring or averaging more points per game than she currently is just under 17 points per game. So big victory for the fever last night one more snippet from a last night post game press conference are going to go and play this and back with some final thoughts. Yeah you know we're just constantly trying to get better that's our goal as a young team and this league the goal is just to get better and to what you know when you do things like what we just talked about with let them score 36 points and we got to figure out how to not let that happen. I mean we haven't been in this position where we grew up 31 but you can't let that kind of league go especially I mean they cut it to six I mean that's just unacceptable is we have to figure out how that happened and not let that happen again. So the question at the start of this particular show today was do the Indiana fever have a Christie sides problem and I tell you what after watching the entire press conference Christie sides have certainly done a better job in the last couple weeks of singing the praises at least of a couple of her players. The other thing she has not really gotten good at doing yet is actually taking full not just partial but full accountability for losses and meltdowns and in this particular case coach email practice I'm not sure that is what I would say but she probably should have taken more heat for the actual fallout from this particular game. I mean she basically sat there and made very few adjustments in the fourth quarter to actually solve the problem of Kalia Cooper. Once again if you go back and watch the game you'll see that Kalia Cooper certainly was the main issue that the Indiana fever could not figure out how to stop on the defensive side of the fence. In terms of do the Indiana fever have a larger Christie sides problem and I think what's fair to do at this point is let the season ride out as it is. Look Michael Jordan's first coach wasn't Michael Jordan's last coach and certainly wasn't Michael Jordan's best coach. You can say that about a lot of great players in the respect of WNBA and NBA leagues. Certainly I think at some point the Indiana fever organization who is reluctant for whatever reasons to move off of Christie sides will need to take a serious look in the mirror and ask the question is Christie sides the right coach for this team to actually take them ultimately someday to the promised land. I think if they're being objective with themselves they'll conclude at the end of the season that maybe Christie sides has done a good enough job to garner another year as a head coach but if they look at the long term outcomes of this particular Indiana fever team and the immense talent that Kaitlyn Clark actually has I would suspect that most people including myself if I were in their organization would actually probably be looking to make a change at head coach alright that is it for today's underrated I want to hear from you North America what do you think about the Christie sides problem do the Indiana fever really have a Christie sides problem alright for the underrated I am Dave DeBau wishing you all a tremendous rest of your sports viewing day to the guitar reps we go you. (upbeat music)