INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Fever are two games into the season, and they already know they have a lot to figure out.

In the first two games of one of the most anticipated seasons in history, the Fever lost by 21 on the road to the Connecticut Sun, then returned home to the wrong side of a 36-point drubbing, 102-66, against the New York Liberty on Thursday at a sold-out Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“You don’t win a lot of games in this league when you only score 66 points, but also you don’t want a lot of games giving up 102,” said Indiana coach Christie Sides. “So we’ve got a lot to figure out.”

More: Fever are loaded with offensive talent. But they have to figure out how to use it.

To give the Fever some (if any) credit, they went up against two of the most experienced teams in the league. The Sun don’t have a rookie on their roster, and their core of DeWanna Bonner, Alyssa Thomas and Brionna Jones have been playing with each other for over four years.

In addition to Sabrina Ionescu, New York has Breanna Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot and Jonquel Jones — all of whom are seasoned veterans who joined the Liberty in 2023, appearing in the WNBA finals.

These players know what they’re doing. They have a connection that can only be forged with time — something the Fever don’t have any advantage in.

“Our communication just has to increase, especially when you’re playing teams that know each other like the back of their hand,” said Fever second-year center Aliyah Boston.

The Fever have two starters who are completely new to the team and system: Katie Lou Samuelson and Caitlin Clark. Samuelson, a five-year veteran, came to Indiana after a year off because of pregnancy. Clark is coming to the Fever as the No. 1 pick, fresh off a Final Four season with Iowa. 

With the Fever, there’s just not the same chemistry other, more-veteran teams, will have. Still, some of it comes down to effort and communication.

“I think there’s quite a bit that we need to learn about each other and about ourselves,” Samuelson said following Thursday’s loss. “But if we can dig deep, and play as hard as we can, as tough as we can for 40 minutes, we can probably make up for some of that. But we have lapses where things just escalate, and you can see this kind of dip.

“So it really comes down to just playing with a lot more energy, playing harder, communicating louder, little things that we shouldn’t be saying in this press conference right now, but that’s really the stuff we need to take care of.”

It takes time to get a team working together as well as the Sun and the Liberty. But, Sides said, the Fever are also missing some things that have nothing to do with how long a team has been together.

“It’s a process, but there’s a level when it just gets too much, when people are just continuing to punch you,” Sides said. “We’ve got to figure out how to stop them and give it right back to them. And we’re just not matching that.

“We’ve just got to get an attitude a little bit when people score on us,” she added. “You just can’t let it be so easy to just let them do what they want to do on us. It all goes back to just having a little bit of fight, passion, toughness.”

The Fever’s schedule isn’t doing them any favors. They start the season with two games each against the Sun, who reached the playoff semifinals last season, and finals runner-up Liberty. Five of their first seven games are on the road, and they play all seven within a 12-day stretch.

It’s challenging, no doubt, but it’s also not an option. The Fever are going to have to work through this gauntlet of a schedule, both travel- and competition-wise.

“You just have to do what you have to do to recover, and take the time when you get it,” Boston said. “We don’t really have that many days of a break in between games, and so we just have to be ready and recover.”

The reality of the situation is the Fever are 0-2, and their 57-point deficit through two games are the most to begin the season in league history (per ESPN Stats). Drafting Clark will be a franchise-changing move for the Fever, but they weren’t going to come out and beat some of the best teams in the league out of the gate.

A’ja Wilson was the Las Vegas Aces’ second-straight No. 1 draft pick in 2018, following Kelsey Plum. That 2018 Aces team went 14-20 and missed the playoffs, getting the top pick for the third straight draft. Now, Las Vegas are the back-to-back champions and Wilson has won two MVP titles. 

If history is any indication, Clark and the Fever are going to be fine. They’re going to be good, or even great. But building chemistry doesn’t happen overnight, and success isn’t instant.

Follow IndyStar Fever Insider Chloe Peterson on X at @chloepterson67.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — It was not the smoothest debut for Caitlin Clark on Tuesday night. She set the record for most amount of turnovers in a WNBA debut with 10. But, she did finish with 20 points and knocked down four threes, which was also a record.

She joined Maya Moore and Edna Campbell as the only players in WNBA history to score 20 points and make four three pointers in their debut.

Now, she returns to Indianapolis for her regular season home debut on Thursday, when the Fever play the New York Liberty.

“I guess I’m just excited for Thursday to get back home and have our home opener,” Clark said after the game on Tuesday.

The home crowd should be packed on Thursday night with Fever fans. Their preseason game against the Atlanta Dream set a Fever attendance record for a preseason game, with 13,028 fans in the building. The Fever averaged just over 4,000 fans per game last season.

“Any time you can have a home opener and have the support that we’ve had, our preseason game was tremendous and now we get to for real,” Clark said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be loud. We’re going to need to use the environment to our advantage and I think just learn and move on and get ready to play. Embrace it and enjoy it because it is special, too.”

While it was not the ideal regular season debut, Clark did play better in the fourth quarter. She scored eight points and knocked down two three-pointers.

It was a rough first game for the team as a whole as well. They turned the ball over 25 times and allowed the Sun to shoot over 42% from three-point range. All-Star and 2023 Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston was shut down as well, scoring just four points on 2-6 shooting.

The Fever home opener on Thursday will be against the New York Liberty, who lost in the WNBA Finals last year. They also have the reigning WNBA MVP, Breanna Stewart.

The game will tip off at 7 p.m.

Stay updated with WISH-TV‘s live coverage from Gainbridge Fieldhouse starting at 5 p.m.