What to expect of Caitlin Clark in return from injury in Indiana Fever vs Las Vegas Aces

Around 20 to 25, so we'll see what that looks like. But she will be available and able to play, still with the minutes restriction. Do you expect the same kind of distribution of how you handle those minutes by quarter as last time in LA? No, because that's 10 more minutes a game than we had the last time. So I think you can go for longer periods. I think the biggest thing is when you haven't done anything really for a couple of weeks, it's endurance. It's building endurance, it's efficiency, it's getting back in rhythm, getting back with timing and flow and all of those things, and trying to expand the longer periods of time, for sure. Is she practicing today also? Yes. What was the distinction of rest versus back for the last game? Was it because it was a back-to-back? Was her back a factor at all? How did that come to pass for her endurance? Yeah, I mean, I think it's all those things. I mean, obviously, you know, the training staff, as always, we want to be conservative and think about the long-term, you know, health and wellness and understanding, you know, the physical demands that a back-to-back and with travel, you know, comes into play and knowing that she hadn't really done anything for a couple of weeks. I mean, you know, oftentimes when you're coming back from injury, fatigue is also a factor and building endurance is also a factor. And when you're fatigued, you have a tendency to get hurt. So, you know, I do think that it's just being cautious, making sure we put the long-term health and wellness as a priority. I'll just add really quick the designation. That was our decision because it was a premeditated rest decision. We didn't want it to seem like her back was a factor again. So it was distinct that it was a scheduled rest. In terms of the minutes distribution, as Tony said, just how do you anticipate using those minutes tomorrow? I mean, it depends on how she feels and how she looks. You know, certainly you want to try to expand the times that she's on the floor together without having long periods of time where you're sitting and you're getting stiff. You know, some of that will be collaborating with her and her just letting us know how she feels. Some of that will be, you know, trying to objectively look at how her movement patterns are and how she's moving. And some of it will be strategy, you know, based on having her for the fourth quarter, you know, saving some minutes for the fourth quarter, saving some minutes for the second half. I'm sure if the back tightening up is a part of that, you ask the medical staff for some input there. How much does Kaitlin's input matter in that case? Or do you have to be cautious and not let her try to play through it as well? I mean, it matters. It matters because, you know, I think more than anything over the last, you know, 18 months, she's learned so much about her body, right? Like, she's competitive. Like, she wants to play. She wants to be out there. Like, there's no doubt about that. And, of course, we want her to be out there. You know, I think there are times where you have to try to save a player from themselves when they want to do too much. And that's where it's like, okay, looking at efficiency, looking at fatigue, looking at movement patterns. But also, she's really grown in her ability to learn her body and know, hey, I need one or talk to the training staff or something doesn't feel right. So I think it's all collaborative and making sure that everybody's on the same page. You talked about, obviously, her learning her body. Just over a year ago, she talked about how she doesn't believe in minutes restrictions, but that's obviously changed now. How has that, her learning her body and just going through all these injuries, how has that changed her thoughts on minutes restrictions? Well, I mean, again, I know I often say this, but there's no substitute for experience. You don't know what you don't know. And when you haven't been injured and when you haven't gone through it, you know, and again, you think about, you know, last year was the first year that we played 44 games, 44 games again this year, and now we have a break for World Cup, so games are even more condensed and compressed. I mean, there's so much that goes into it than just, okay, I want to play, okay, we're going to be out there, okay, we're going to throw it out there. I mean, you know, there's a lot more from a sports science standpoint than that. But I think she's grown a lot in that. And, again, it's part of growing up. It's part of learning to be a pro. It's part of her understanding her body. And, you know, I think when you're young and you haven't had injury, you don't quite understand how everything is connected. You know, I was joking the other day that I wanted to play the skeleton song, like, you know, hip bones connected to the knee bone, the knee bones connected to the thigh bone, like that, because it is all connected. And it's important. And different beds, different pillows, travel, like all of those things affect it. I'm sure you've seen your fair share of Michaela Timpson athletic feats. Where does that block rank among them? I've never seen anything like that in our league. You know, you've seen blocks that go off the backboard, but I've never seen a block that's pinned off the backboard. In fact, I was very disappointed when I watched SportsCenter that night and she wasn't even in the top ten. So, you know, I've not seen anything like that in our league. It was really incredible. You know, in the moment, it was awing. When you have a chance to watch it over and over, it's still just as – I mean, I'm getting chills just talking about it. And it was a momentum changer for us. The whole bench popped up. I mean, yeah, exactly. What do you think it did for the energy of your team to come back and win it again? It was huge. I mean, it was. Like, it was a key play and an energy shifter for us. It started our defensive stops. You know, we hadn't been getting a ton of stops in a row. It gave us momentum on the other end of the floor. I mean, sometimes in games you need a little bit of juice and a play like that can give it to you. Asia's obviously coming back today. You guys didn't play her last week. How does that – how does her return obviously change things for you guys? Yeah, I mean, it changes everything. She's one of the best players in the world. So, you know, her ability to affect the game on both ends of the floor, you know, the different things that they run for her, the different ways that you have to guard and honor everyone on the floor. So, we've got to – our attention to detail has to be great on both ends of the floor. We have to know what we're trying to get when she's on the floor defensively. We have to understand, you know, where she is and how we want to play personnel, how we want to play collectively on the defensive end. You guys are halfway done now. Where are you compared to maybe where you hoped to be at this time? And what do you see as growth areas heading into the second half of the season? Halfway done, that seems like an awful lot. Half full. Halfway through. No, it's – you know, obviously I think we'd like to be further along in terms of our record. You know, I think being realistic of understanding that there are a lot of different pieces that we have to put together and still managing certainly, you know, multiple games without Kaitlyn on the floor and the opportunity to continue to mesh. You know, I think the great thing is that we do have half the season left, right? And we do have an opportunity to continue to grow in that. The biggest thing is our consistency. I think we've shown flashes of really good things and we've got to continue to grow in consistency of that. You know, we've got to continue, you know, for our players to be stars in their roles for us and understand that it's going to take all of us collectively.