Clark Posts First 45-Point, 10-Assist Game in WNBA History, Drags Fever Past Storm

INDIANAPOLIS -- You want the numbers first? Fine. Forty-five points. Ten assists. Four steals. Twenty-nine minutes of playing time. The Indiana Fever beat Seattle 110-107 on Friday night, and Caitlin Clark did things in that building nobody has ever done in the 28-year history of this league.

According to ESPN, Clark's career-high 45-point, 10-assist performance was the first of its kind in WNBA history, making her the only player ever to put up 40 and 10 in the same game. She also became just the 10th player in league history to score 45 in a single contest, and set the Indiana franchise record for points in a game.

She did it in under 30 minutes, on a minutes restriction, while coming back from a back injury.

The Fever trailed by eight with eight minutes left. Seattle had taken a 97-89 lead midway through the fourth quarter after a strong third-quarter run. What happened next is why people who cover this league are running out of fresh language. According to a report reviewed by Eastern Herald, Clark scored 16 of Indiana's next 19 points to close out the win. She hit a 26-footer with 39 seconds on the clock to put Indiana up for good, then sealed it with a steal from Seattle's Flau'jae Johnson with under a minute remaining.

And she did all of this while telling anyone who'd listen afterward that Indiana's defense was "embarrassing." She's not wrong. The Storm are not a playoff team. The Fever shouldn't need 45 from their point guard to survive them. But Clark needed 45, so Clark got 45.

She wasn't alone on the score sheet. As ESPN noted, Kelsey Mitchell dropped 30 points -- her franchise-record ninth consecutive game with 20-plus -- and the two became the first backcourt partners in WNBA history to hit 40 and 30 in the same game. Indiana's ceiling, when those two are cooking, is a legitimate championship-contender ceiling.

The floor, though, keeps showing up. The Fever let Seattle hang around long enough to lead in the fourth quarter of what should've been a comfortable home win. That's the team's real issue heading into the back half of the regular season. At 15-10, according to Eastern Herald, they're in the playoff picture but not clear of trouble.

There's a bigger backdrop here, and it'd be dishonest to ignore it. OutKick reported that Clark has spent recent weeks at the center of a controversy that started when Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas punched her in the throat during a June game. The fallout has been loud: Republican lawmakers wrote to WNBA leadership demanding accountability, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert pulled out of a scheduled interview on the Dan Patrick Show, and Clark herself publicly called out the league's officiating. Two days before Friday's historic performance, she was ejected from a loss to Golden State after screaming at a referee over what she said was a foul that gave her a leg contusion.

Then she went out Friday and put up the best game of her professional life.

The league can sort out its officiating mess on its own schedule. What it can't do is manufacture what Clark produces when she's healthy and the moment is right. She told reporters after the game that she didn't care about the records. She cared that Indiana's defense wasn't good enough. That's either the most professional answer a superstar has ever given, or it's the most pointed one. Probably both.

The Fever play again tonight against the New York Liberty on CBS. If Indiana's defense doesn't show up, Clark may need to do this again.

Sources cited:
- ESPN (https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49387955/fever-caitlin-clark-records-wnba-1st-40-point-10-assist-double-double)
- Eastern Herald (https://easternherald.com/2026/07/18/caitlin-clark-45-points-first-40-10-wnba/)
- OutKick / Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/caitlin-clark-makes-wnba-history-record-breaking-game-weeks-controversy)
- NewsNation (https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/sports/caitlin-clark-wnba-history-fever/)