The scene inside Wintrust Arena felt strangely calm during shoot-around, despite the fact that the Indiana Fever were stepping onto the floor without either their head coach Christie Sides—sidelined by league health protocols—or their transcendent rookie guard, Caitlin Clark, who was nursing a sore ankle picked up two nights earlier in Minneapolis.

Stepping into the coaching box for the first time: 31-year-old assistant Austin Kelly, the clipboard still bearing Sides’s neatly color-coded play sets.

People in the stands whispered about damage control. What they got instead was the kind of statement win that turns footnotes into folklore, and it began with Clark trading sneakers for a headset.

Right after an abbreviated warm-up confirmed she could cut but not explode, Clark lobbied to be active as an “emergency only” option. The Fever’s medical staff declined, but Kelly found a workaround.

He handed her an iPad loaded with scouting clips and a grease board no bigger than a library book. “If you’re going to sit, you might as well quarterback,” he told her. Clark nodded, wrapped her ankle in ice, and grabbed a front-row seat next to the rookies.

The guard who usually orchestrates the offense now became an extra set of eyes, narrating defensive rotations and pointing out pockets of space like a traffic controller guiding jets in storm clouds.

From the opening tip Indiana looked nothing like a team down its two most influential voices. Kelly installed a simplified five-out motion to free Kelsey Mitchell and Lexie Hull, making every possession a read-and-react clinic.

Meanwhile Clark, leaning forward with elbows on her knees, offered running commentary: “See ball, see woman… next screen, switch early… Lexie, corner flare is open.”

Television mics caught snippets; most sounded like a graduate-level seminar in spatial geometry. Whenever the Sky switched to zone, she tapped Kelly’s shoulder, scribbled an adjustment, and the Fever responded with a high-post flash that produced layups on consecutive trips.

Chicago’s scouting report dared Indiana’s secondary playmakers to beat them. For a quarter and a half that gamble seemed defensible; the Sky led 36-32 behind Kamilla Cardoso’s inside dominance and Angel Reese’s offensive rebounding. Then the bench mic picked up Clark urging Mitchell to “hunt the early pull-up—paint’s sagging.”

On the very next possession Mitchell sprinted into a drag screen and drilled a 19-footer. She followed with two logo threes before Chicago blinked, and suddenly Kelly’s sideline demeanor shifted from stoic to animated, clapping so hard the veins in his neck bulged. The Fever closed the half on a 15-4 surge, taking a 47-40 advantage that had the small visitor’s section on its feet.

Inside the locker room at intermission, Clark moved from advisor to hype conductor. Cameras later revealed her pacing in front of the whiteboard, sneaker squeaking over the vinyl flooring, voice bouncing off cinder-block walls. “Finish your cuts with purpose,” she barked, then softer: “Trust each other, screen for shooters, crash like you mean it.”

Kelly, holding the marker, simply nodded and let her cook. Afterward he admitted, “I had notes prepared, but she’d already hit every point.” Instead he drilled situational sets and hammered home one directive: push pace until Chicago’s bigs begged for a whistle.

Angel Reese doesn’t beg—she barges. Early in the third quarter she bullied her way to three straight put-backs, cutting the margin to two. That’s when Clark grabbed her mini board and drew a diagram that looked like an abstract doodle: two looped arrows and a giant X under the rim.

Translation: trap the rebounder high, send weak-side help early, force the kick-out. Kelly implemented it out of the timeout; on the next rebound Reese was funnelled baseline, double-teamed, and forced into a turnover. The Fever converted the scramble into a Lexie Hull trail three, all orchestrated by a coach in sneakers and a superstar on one good ankle.

Momentum swung like a wrecking ball. Mitchell finished the quarter with 11 of her game-high 29, Hull added 18 on just nine shots, and Temi Fagbenle’s physicality frustrated Cardoso into two offensive fouls.

Each time Indiana scored, Clark slapped the scorer’s table, ankle forgotten. She even stood during free throws, gesturing to rookies Celeste Taylor and Grace Berger about floor spacing for the next defensive possession. “She’s a walking huddle,” Mitchell chuckled later. “You’re never confused because she’s narrating the movie in real time.”

Still, you don’t knockout Chicago without bracing for one last Angel Reese haymaker. Down 74-66 with 5:23 left, the Sky strung together an 8-0 burst, highlighted by Reese’s coast-to-coast euro-step that brought the crowd to its loudest roar of the night.

Timeout Indiana. Cameras focused on Kelly drawing up a play, but just behind him Clark leaned over, tapped Mitchell’s wrist, and mouthed, “I want the dagger.”

First action out of the break: a stagger screen that freed Mitchell above the break—net. Second action: same set, but this time she skipped the pass to Hull in the corner—swish. The Fever never looked back.

The final minute turned into celebration theatre. Kelly, realizing his debut win was assured, pointed to Clark: “Close it out.” She grabbed the iPad, toggled to a late-game situational chart, and directed her teammates to use up the shot clock and switch everything. Chicago’s last three possessions produced a contested two, an air-balled corner three, and an offensive charge.

Buzzer. Fever 87, Sky 80. Kelly exhaled so deeply his shoulders sagged, an entire childhood of coaching-career dreams crystallizing in real time. Clark hobbled toward him, hugged the rookie coach like an older sister, and said—audible thanks to an errant boom mic—“That’s one for the résumé, Coach.”

Locker-room victory rituals can feel rote, but this one bordered on volcanic. As the team spilled inside, veteran Erica Wheeler sprinted to the stereo and cranked Lil Baby’s “Freestyle.”

Fagbenle ripped open a cooler of electrolyte packets, tossing them like confetti. Mitchell climbed onto a folding chair and yelled, “First-timer!” as players formed a circle around Kelly. They doused him with water bottles, cold tubs, and what suspiciously looked like the remains of an orange smoothie.

Kelly pretended to frown, then broke into a grin so wide even the bash-proof goggles he’d pre-emptively donned couldn’t hide it. “I’ll take a sticky suit for a win any day,” he laughed, drenched and dripping onto the rubberized flooring.

Reporters filed in moments later to a room still thumping. Kelly, towel over shoulders, fielded questions about adjustments, composure, and how he balanced leaning on Clark without surrendering authority.

“Easy,” he replied. “Leadership isn’t volume; it’s wisdom. I had the whistle, but she had the vision. We just combined ’em.” Clark, seated to his left with a bag of ice taped around her ankle, downplayed her role. “This league is too good to rely on one voice. Everybody in here could coach a possession if we needed.”

Statistics painted the structural reasons for victory: Indiana shot 51 percent from the field, forced 17 turnovers, and limited Chicago’s perimeter trio of Mabrey, Evans, and Carter to 9-for-31. Yet numbers felt insufficient.

The night’s resonance came from optics: a star who couldn’t play refusing irrelevance, a rookie coach turning trust into a win, and a roster proving depth is more than a buzzword. “Culture travels,” veteran Kristy Wallace said, tugging at her sodden jersey. “Tonight it traveled from the starting five to the last seat on the bench.”

Outside the locker room, General Manager Lin Dunn beamed like a proud grandmother. Asked what impressed her most, she didn’t mention shooting percentages or defensive schemes. “Adaptability,” she said.

“That’s championship DNA—it shows up when the plan falls apart.” She paused, cocked an eyebrow, and added with a mischievous grin, “And might want to update those Coach of the Year odds while you’re at it.”

As the team bus idled in the loading dock, Kelly walked out still wearing his soaked dress shirt, now translucent and clinging to his frame. Clark limped behind him, one arm draped over a folding chair repurposed as a crutch.

Somebody shouted, “Speech!” Kelly turned, waved both hands, and spoke just two words: “First of many.” Laughter and applause echoed off concrete walls. Clark nodded in agreement, then offered her own postscript, voice soft but firm over the diesel hum: “We’re built for storms. Tonight proved that.”

The fever dream of an evening ended well past midnight, social media already buzzing with clips of Clark’s sideline coaching and Kelly’s impromptu ice bath. Somewhere between Chicago and Indianapolis, the bus cabin lights dimmed.

Players dozed, earbuds in. Up front, Kelly reviewed game film on a laptop, and right beside him, Clark scribbled in a notebook whose cover read simply “Next.” One win down, an entire season’s worth of possibilities suddenly felt a lot wider.