Clark: Fever perform better when playing with 'a light mood'

Indiana Fever phenom Caitlin Clark thinks the team needs to stay relaxed ahead of its first-round matchup against the Connecticut Sun.

"You can't get too tight; that's not going to let you play good basketball," Clark said, according to ESPN's Alexa Philippou. "I think that's what's brought us a lot of success here in the second half of the season, is the fun and energy that we play with, and a light mood.

"But at the same time, I feel like everybody's approaching this as this is the playoffs. This is very important to every single person on this team."

Clark and the Fever clinched their first postseason appearance since 2016 as the sixth seed in the league. Indiana started the season 1-8 but went 9-5 after the Olympic break to finish the campaign 20-20.

The Fever rank last of the eight teams with 19 total postseason games by players on the roster, according to the WNBA. Meanwhile, the Sun are second with 222 as Connecticut has made the playoffs for the last eight seasons.

"I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Fever coach Christie Sides said. "They don't know. So what they don't know, they're just going to come out, they play hard, right? They play hard from the time that we jump ball, so what they don't know, they're just going to keep doing. I hope they just keep doing what we've been doing all season."

The Sun won the regular-season series against the Fever 3-1, but Indiana won the last matchup at the end of August. Connecticut hosts the first two games of the best-of-three series, which starts Sunday.