• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Fever-Silver Stars Preview

Jul 22, 2009 - 7:17 PM By KATE HEDLIN STATS Writer

Indiana (12-3) at San Antonio (6-8), 12:30 p.m. EDT

Indiana Fever star Tamika Catchings had one of her worst games of the season in a loss over the weekend. It didn't take long for her to bounce back with one of her best performances of the year.

Catchings will look to duplicate her latest effort as the conference-leading Fever visit the San Antonio Silver Stars on Thursday to close out a three-game road trip.

Indiana's star forward was held to a season-low five points and shot 2-for-12 from the field Sunday, and the Fever had their 11-game winning streak snapped in a 67-61 loss to Connecticut.

Catchings wasted little time in rebounding from the poor game, scoring a season-high 28 points and adding 10 boards and three steals in an 82-70 victory over Washington on Tuesday.

Catchings struggled with her shooting again, going 6-of-15, but hit all 14 foul shots.

"Tonight I wanted to kind of redeem myself to my teammates and get to the basket more and try to get to the free-throw line," she said.

The Fever forced 20 turnovers, outrebounded the Mystics 34-28 and outscored them 26-16 at the line. Ebony Hoffman and Tammy Sutton-Brown each scored 16 points.

"(Defense) is what we want to be known for," Catchings said. "Sounds so simple, but it's just so hard. Once we made the commitment to one another to be there and have each other's back, that's how we play."

The Fever (12-3) have held opponents to 69.3 points per game, among the fewest in the league.

The Silver Stars (6-8) have not been nearly as successful on the defensive end. San Antonio lost for the third time in four games Sunday, 85-75 to Chicago.

The Sky took a 22-7 lead after the first quarter and shot 48.5 percent from the field overall, while San Antonio hit 34.4 percent from the floor.

Becky Hammon scored nine of her 22 points during a 3:30 span of the fourth quarter as the Silver Stars cut an 11-point deficit to five with 3:49 remaining. Chicago, though, responded with an 8-0 run.

"Backbreakers," said Hammon, who averaged 23.5 points in her last four games. "You work so hard to get there (and) we just didn't get stuff done down the stretch. It's a shame because we fought back hard. We just didn't get the stops we needed."

San Antonio, allowing 74.1 points per game on the year, gave up 79.5 over the last four games.

The Silver Stars won both meetings with the Fever last season, but Indiana took four of the last five matchups in San Antonio.