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Liberty-Fever Preview

Jun 27, 2009 - 5:17 AM By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN STATS Senior Writer

New York (2-4) at Indiana (4-2), 7:00 p.m. EDT

It's been nearly seven years since the New York Liberty won in Indianapolis, and the Indiana Fever should be tough to beat Saturday night.

The Fever seek a franchise record-tying sixth straight victory when the Liberty make their lone visit in 2009 to Conseco Fieldhouse in the finale of a home-and-home set.

Indiana (5-2) has beaten New York at home in 11 straight regular-season meetings. The Liberty (2-5) haven't won at Conseco since July 19, 2002.

The Fever have also won 10 of the last 12 meetings overall between the teams after rallying for an 82-81 overtime victory Friday at Madison Square Garden. Indiana trailed by as many as 17 points in the second half before Katie Douglas inspired the comeback.

Douglas was held scoreless in the first half, but bounced back to finish with 28 points.

"I couldn't make a shot," said Douglas, who missed all nine shots in the first half. "Maybe in my younger years I would have gotten rattled, but I know its eventually going to go down. I just need to see the ball go through the net one time. I opened up the third quarter, it went through one time, and I was able to gain some confidence from that."

Douglas got fired up after an altercation with New York's Shameka Christon late in the third quarter. After Douglas missed a 3-point shot, she and Christon got tangled up and Douglas was knocked to the floor.

When the teams came back downcourt, Douglas and Christon had to be separated. After officials reviewed the incident, Douglas was charged with an offensive foul and Christon was issued a technical.

"There's a lot of things that go on in a game," Douglas said. "I'm not a dirty player and she's not, either. Things in the heat of the moment. The refs did a good job cleaning it up and making the right call."

Christon scored 20 points, Loree Moore had 15 and Janel McCarville 14 for New York, which had a five-point lead with 1:05 left in overtime, and also blew a five-point advantage with 27 seconds to go in regulation.

"We can't be too down about it," Christon said. "This was a tough loss. Everybody came out and played as hard as they could play. We had some mistakes on our part that cost us the game, but ... we have to pick our heads up and go out and play tomorrow."

McCarville fouled out with eight of New York's 21 turnovers, She also missed two free throws right before Indiana's Tamika Catchings nailed a tying 3-pointer with 14 seconds left in the fourth quarter.