CHICAGO — The first three games between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky were competitive, with the June games decided by a combined score of 10 points.

That wasn’t the case Friday in the teams’ fourth and final regular-season meeting, however, with the Fever (16-16) winning 100-81, leading by as many as 27 points, to reach the .500 mark for the first time since May 2022, when they were just 2-2. Indiana’s 103 consecutive games under .500 was the third-longest streak in WNBA history, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

The last time the franchise was .500 or better in the month of August? It was 2016, the final season of the legendary Tamika Catching.

In addition to their biggest win this season, the Fever also secured the win of the season against the Sky: 3-1.

“It feels good to be at .500 right now,” Indiana coach Christie Sides said. “It’s been a long time since the Fever were at .500. I’m just really proud of that and where we are compared to where we started. But I never doubted that this is where we could be.”

Indiana has been one of the league’s best teams since the Olympic break, improving to 5-1 during that span. By reaching 100 on Friday — a season high in scoring — the Fever showed once again that they have the league’s best offense since mid-June and have become one of the WNBA’s most dangerous teams.

Rookie sensation Caitlin Clark was mesmerizing with a personal-best 31 points and 12 assists. She is the fifth player in WNBA history to record 30 points and 10 assists in a game and the third to reach that stat line in regulation time.

Chicago, which held a Barbie Night in honor of rookie star Angel Reese, has lost five straight games and six of seven in the second half. Michaela Onyenwere and Lindsay Allen led the Sky with 20 and 19 points, respectively.

Here are three key points from the match.

Fever’s red-hot attack shows no signs of slowing down

Indiana has the best offensive rating in the league since June 13, and Friday’s performance will only increase that number.

After a slow start and falling behind by 13 points, the Fever got into a rhythm with their bread and butter: pushing the pace and scoring from the 3-point line. Mitchell (23 points) led the charge with 18 points in the first half — her most in a half this season — but she and Clark combined for 6 of 9 shooting from 3 through the first 20 minutes. It was more of the same in the second half, as the Fever managed one of their best 3-point shooting nights of the season (13 of 29).

Clark will make headlines for her stellar performance, but the team also showed appreciation for the defensive contributions of Temi Fagbenle, who was the team’s best – plus 29 off the bench, Lexie Hull, who continued her recent shooting (3 of 4 from distance) and NaLyssa Smith, who stabilized the Fever with 11 points in the third quarter when Aliyah Boston was benched for foul trouble.

Sky shift continues

The Sky had the momentum early Friday morning, establishing an offensive flow that built a 24-11 lead. Coach Teresa Weatherspoon preached a next-player-up mentality before the game with leading scorer Chennedy Carter (health and safety protocols) absent, and Allen and Onyen heeded the call, opening the game a combined 7-of-9 from the field and 3-of-3 from the 3-point arc. By halftime, with the Sky trailing by just five points, those two had combined for 28 of Chicago’s 42 points.

Execution in the final games has been a sticking point for the Sky in recent games, but Friday was more a case of wheels falling. The Fever pulled within three at the end of the first period, then won the middle two quarters by a combined 19 points. Even when Chicago pulled within single digits in the third period, it never felt like Indiana was truly out of control.

Since the season restarted, Weatherspoon has implored her team to be more disciplined defensively, to know the scout and execute. Allowing 100 points — the most the Sky have allowed this season — and letting the Fever get pretty much everything they want offensively was the opposite of that.

“We’ve got a lot of things we need to fix, and it starts on the defensive side of the ball,” Weatherspoon said. “We’re not disrupting the game. We’re letting teams shoot where they want, when they want.

“Defense is the hardest thing you can play in this game. In the third quarter, we sent them to the line time and time again.”

Guard Rachel Banham, who joined the team last month in the deal that sent then-leading scorer Marina Mabrey to Connecticut, didn’t hold back during the postgame press conference, saying, “We just lacked effort at times.”

“If you’re not motivated to get your ass beaten, we’ve got a problem,” she said. “Then don’t wear a uniform. You can feel this better in your chest.”

Chicago doesn’t have much time to figure things out with a tough road game coming up, playing at Minnesota on Sunday and Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Playoff race gets more interesting

Don’t look too quickly, but if the regular season were to end today, the Fever would clinch the sixth seed in the playoffs, as they win the tiebreaker over Phoenix Mercury, who also win 16-16.

A lot can change in the next three weeks, but the idea of ​​the Fever climbing as high as the sixth seed in the postseason seemed far-fetched when they entered 2024 with a 1-8 record. Their favorable remaining schedule — they have three games against teams with winning records, two of them at home — should give Indiana fans plenty of comfort about where the team stands with the playoffs just around the corner.

Chicago (11-20), meanwhile, is clinging to eighth place amid its season-worst losing streak. And yet it still holds a one-game lead over the Atlanta Dream, who fell to the two-time reigning champion Las Vegas Aces on Friday night. The Dream have failed to capitalize on the struggling Sky, losing four straight after beating the Storm, Sun and Mercury to start the second half. And with the Wings beating the Lynx, Dallas can’t be written off either, as it now trails Chicago by two games (as does Washington).

A lot can happen in three weeks, but if Sky want to play until the end of September they need to sort out their problems quickly before their sixth successive play-off spot slips through their fingers.