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Fever-Liberty Preview

Aug 25, 2010 - 5:51 PM Indiana (21-13) at New York (22-12), 7:00 p.m. EDT

The Indiana Fever fell just shy of winning their first WNBA title last year, but after struggling to close out the 2010 regular season, they won't be favored to get back to the finals.

The Fever open their best-of-three series against the streaking New York Liberty at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.

Indiana (21-13) lost in five games to Phoenix in last season's WNBA finals. While the Fever chose not to make any offseason moves, they still appeared to be in good position to make another deep playoff run after moving into first place in the Eastern Conference earlier this month.

Indiana, though, lost its final three games to finish third in the East.

"It's a clean slate now," guard Tully Bevilaqua told the Fever's official website. "Our minds have forgotten what happened in the regular season."

Forward Tamika Catchings should be well rested after getting Monday off from practice. She played 33 minutes in Sunday's 83-79 overtime loss to Minnesota, scoring 17 points on 3-of-10 shooting to go along with a season-high 14 rebounds. In her previous game, she finished with 15 points after scoring at least 25 in the three prior contests.

Catchings averaged 17.2 points and 10.4 rebounds in last year's playoffs and was critical in helping Indiana overcome a late-season slump. The Fever, in the playoffs for a sixth straight season, lost five of their final seven in 2009 before going on their playoff run.

Getting by New York (22-12), however, won't be easy.

The Liberty won 11 of their final 12 and beat Connecticut 88-87 in overtime Sunday to secure home-court advantage in the first round.

"Home-court advantage was important to us," guard Leilani Mitchell said. "We wanted to end on a good note and have some momentum going into the playoffs."

While the Fever and Liberty are among the top five in scoring defense in the WNBA, allowing 74.1 and 76.0 points per game, respectively, the winner of this series may come down to which team's star plays better.

Catchings ranked fifth in the league with 18.2 points per game while New York guard Cappie Pondexter was third at 21.4. Pondexter, who finished sixth in the WNBA with 4.9 assists per game in her first season with the Liberty, was named Eastern Conference player of the month after averaging 23.0 points in August.

"(Pondexter) is very good at finding the open teammate," Bevilaqua said. "Our rotation has to be sharp so we can get the help needed on the kick-out pass."

Pondexter won two WNBA titles in Phoenix and she'll try to help the Liberty, who missed the playoffs last season, get an early advantage in this series. New York has won eight in a row at home, including a 78-57 victory over the Fever on Aug. 17 in their most recent meeting.

These teams split their four matchups with Pondexter averaging 23.8 points, including a career-high and franchise-record 40 points in an 84-81 overtime loss at Madison Square Garden on July 18.

The series shifts to Conseco Fieldhouse for Game 2 on Sunday night.