Fever’s Caitlin Clark sets WNBA record with 19 assists in loss to Wings

Caitlin Clark broke the WNBA record for assists in a game with 19 on Wednesday night in the Indiana Fever’s 101-93 road loss to the Dallas Wings, the final league-wide game before the month-long Olympic break.

The previous record for assists in a single game was 18, set by Courtney Vandersloot for Chicago on August 31, 2020. Vandersloot also had 18 in a playoff game on September 28, 2021.

Clark, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft and the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader, also had 24 points on 10-for-19 shooting. She scored or assisted on 66 points for the Fever — the most in a game in WNBA history, surpassing Diana Taurasi’s 65-point performance on Aug. 10, 2006.

Clark became the second rookie in league history, following Candace Parker in 2008, to score or assist 50 or more points in multiple games.

Her career high for assists in college at Iowa was 18 at Penn State on Jan. 25, 2022, while her previous WNBA season high was 13, achieved four times, most recently in a 95-86 win over Phoenix on Friday night.

Clark’s stat line was the second 20-point, 15-assist game in league history, with the other coming in 2018 for Vandersloot. It was Clark’s third 20-point, 10-assist game, second only to Angel McCoughtry as a rookie in 2009.

“She’ll say it doesn’t mean anything, but I think it’s cool,” teammate Aliyah Boston, who finished with a personal-best 28 points, said of Clark’s performance.

“I just try to set my teammates up for success,” said Clark, who had nine dimes for Boston alone and helped the Fever score 62 points in the paint. “I think sometimes I can almost overachieve … especially with AB, I just try to set her up as much as I can. My eyes are just always on our post players.”

Clark is the first rookie and ninth player in WNBA history to record at least 400 points and 200 assists in a season. Chelsea Gray has three such seasons, Alyssa Thomas has two and six other players — Sue Bird, Jordin Canada, Natasha Cloud, Sabrina Ionescu, Courtney Williams and Vandersloot — have done it once.

Fever coach Christie Sides said: “(Clark) has the ability and the vision to see things, and we’re going to get better and better as we play with her to be on the same page with her … 19 assists is unbelievable. That’s unbelievable.”

Following her record-breaking performance, Clark went from -1000 to -2000 for WNBA Rookie of the Year honors on ESPN BET, while the Sky’s Angel Reese went from +500 to +600.

Now 26 games into the season, Clark has scored or assisted on 915 points, a rookie single-season record. Her 213 assists on the season are also the second-most by a rookie in league history and are closing in on Ticha Penicheiro’s record of 225.

But after the game, the Fever lamented leaving Dallas without a win. Now, at 6-19, the Wings sit last in the WNBA standings, and Indiana knows every game matters as it looks to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

“Offensively, we were able to get everything we wanted all night, that’s how it felt. It was just our defense,” Clark said. “We gave up 28 points on turnovers, I think 20 of them were in the first half. That’s a real killer to start the game, and you just have to take better care of the ball. When you give up 100-plus points, you’re not going to win many games.”

After the loss, the Fever dropped to 11-15 and entered the Olympic break seventh in the league. The top eight teams advance to the play-offs.

“It’s a little frustrating. I feel like we’ve dropped two games that we can easily win before halftime, the Mystics at home and then obviously this one, and then we’ve won other games that are really tough for us,” Clark said. “I think that’s the biggest area where our team can grow. These last 14 games of the year, you can’t pass up those opportunities.”

Clark, Boston and teammate Kelsey Mitchell will then travel to Phoenix to participate in the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday, where the trio and the rest of Team WNBA will take on the U.S. Olympic team.

ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.