'Can't believe it's been 10 years': Indiana Fever celebrate 2012 championship team

INDIANAPOLIS -- Has it really been a decade? That long since the floor was shaking, confetti was falling and the Fever were champions?

“You put us back together and it’s like time never went away,” Tamika Catchings said on Sunday. “I can’t believe it’s been 10 years.”

The Indiana Fever took on the Connecticut Sun on Sunday afternoon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, losing 92-70. But this day was for celebrating the 2012 WNBA championship team that defied the odds en route to a title over the Minnesota Lynx. Several players, coaches and front office members from that team took the floor during halftime to reminisce and thank the fans for their support.

“The floor felt like it was shaking, our fans were cheering so loud,” Briann January, who played a key role defensively throughout the team’s title run, said of her memories from the clinching game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Oct. 21, 2012. “It was an environment like I've never been in before. To feel that support, it carried us through those Finals. We had the best fans in the league, hands down.”

After posting the second-best record in the Eastern Conference during the regular season, the Fever lost the first game of its opening series to Atlanta at home. Right away, the team’s backs were against the wall. It won two straight and advanced to play Connecticut. A loss in the first game put Indiana in a pair of must-win situations again.

For the second time in as many series, they won consecutive games. This time, it meant a trip to the WNBA Finals.

“The adversity we faced in the first two rounds, and that we were able to overcome it, really boosted us into the finals,” 2012 coach and current Fever general manager Lin Dunn said. “By the time we got to the Finals, we really believed we could win because of what we'd already done.”

The Fever split the first two games against Minnesota, which had won the 2011 WNBA title, before winning consecutive games in Indianapolis to clinch the franchise’s first championship. Catchings was named the WNBA Finals MVP, averaging 22.3 points per game. She scored 25 points in the clinching win.

Dunn said it was the Hall of Famer’s best stretch of basketball in her career.

“She is one of the few people that can will an entire team to a victory,” said January, who is still playing in the WNBA for Seattle. “She put us on her back.”

Catchings, true to form, is quick to deflect praise. 

“A win is a win, right? I’ll take it, whatever that means,” she said. “A lot of credit goes to my teammates. I could do what I do, but no star is a star without the supporting cast. Every single player stepped up. One player doesn’t win games. Maybe my best performance, but the team was able to step up and come together.”

That year’s roster was made up of veterans and young players who stepped up in big moments. Fast forward 10 years, and the Fever are hoping this roster can be the start of the next championship era. 

“It recharges my battery to think it's possible,” Dunn said. “For us to take that team 10 years ago and go all the way to a championship makes me think anything's possible. It's gonna take time. It's gonna take patience. It's going to take some good decisions and free agency and drafting. But I think we've made a good start so far.”

Catchings admits it’s been an “interesting” few months, following her resignation in February as the team’s general manager. Most of the players she drafted are gone. A six-member rookie class that Dunn and head coach Marianne Stanley hand-picked is the future. There have been flashes of potential early in the season, but Dunn, Catchings and everyone else involved knows this will be a process.

There were some bright moments in the team’s third straight loss, including a team-high 15 points from Victoria Vivians. But the defense struggled to contain one of the best offensive teams in the league. Connecticut had four players score in double-figures, shot 52% and hit six 3-pointers. At one point, its lead was as many as 24. The Fever managed just 29 points in the second half.

NaLyssa Smith, picked second overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2022 WNBA Draft, missed her third consecutive game with an ankle injury. 

Change won’t happen overnight, but the team is hoping it’s possible in the not-too-distant future. The 2004 team finished with a losing record before making the Eastern Conference Finals the next season — and ushering in an era of dominance.

“They set the standard for Indiana (Fever) basketball and what we want to do,” Stanley said. “There was toughness and resilience. Those are things we need right now. They hustled and made up for mistakes with hard play and team effort. Those are all qualities of a champion.”

The end goal is what the players and fans saw on the floor Sunday — a team coming together to celebrate history.

“You relive the moments of nobody expecting us to do this,” Catchings said. “We did it, and now we get to reminisce. Hopefully these youngsters see us out there and they could be in that same situation.”