Stephanie White responds to Caitlin Clark’s comments on injury decision

Caitlin Clark was sidelined again for coach Stephanie White and the Indiana Fever on Thursday night. After returning from a two-game absence on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Sparks, the Fever opted to give Clark the night off on Thursday against the Phoenix Mercury.

Clark has been dealing with a lingering back injury. She struggled on Wednesday, finishing with just nine points in 16 minutes as the Fever suffered a 106-92 blowout loss to the Sparks.

The three-time All-Star got the night off on Thursday as the Fever played back-to-back games. Despite the absence of their cornerstone superstar, Indiana managed to squeeze out a 92-89 win against Phoenix.

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) walks to the locker room against the Atlanta Dream.

Stephanie White addresses Caitlin Clark injury decision

During her pregame availability, Coach White discussed Clark’s absence from Thursday’s matchup. One of the questions she was asked was about the 6-foot guard’s limited playing time against the Sparks on Wednesday.

According to Clark, she struggled to find a rhythm against L.A. after being asked to play in two- or three-minute spurts. The former Rookie of the Year said that this was not her decision. When presented with Clark’s comments, White confirmed that it was her call.

“Yeah, I think a couple of things,” the Fever coach started. “Number one, if you play longer periods of time and you sit for longer periods of time, and when you have particularly a back injury, sitting for a long period of time isn’t great either. We wanted to be able to give her incremental time frames consistently throughout the course of the game.

“Anytime you’re coming back from injury and anytime you have a minutes restriction, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s part of it. It’s part of working your way back in.

“The other thing is building endurance. It’s been almost two weeks, I think, since the last time that she’s played or a little over two weeks since the last time she played, making sure you can build endurance and you’re not fatigued in some of the movement patterns when you’re out there. Again, she’s guarded differently. She’s guarded 94 feet all the time. Wanted to keep her as fresh as possible while she was out there.”

The plan is for Clark to return for the Fever’s next game. This comes in the form of a matchup against the defending champions, the Las Vegas Aces, on Sunday. That will mark Indiana’s final contest in its current four-game road trip.

At this point, it remains to be seen if White will keep Clark under a minutes restriction on Sunday.