LAS VEGAS — As a longtime Fever player, Indiana assistant Briann January can see a lot of parallels between her 2025 Fever team and the 2012 team that won a championship.
That team, which January and fellow Fever assistant Karima Christmas-Kelly played on, had multiple key injuries. It wasn’t as significant as the five season-ending injuries the 2025 Fever had in July and August but the 2012 team still suffered some serious blows: five-time All-Star Katie Douglas suffered an ankle injury during the Eastern Conference Finals that knocked her out for the rest of the season and Jeannette Pohlen tore her ACL in Game 2 of the Finals.
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Even then, the Fever persevered, with leadership from then-head coach Lin Dunn (who is now a Fever senior advisor) and assistant Steph White — who is now the Fever’s head coach.
Through those injuries and adversity, the Fever won the WNBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.
“We had people who had played no minutes, played limited minutes on our bench, come in and to win it,” January said. “Direct parallels, with the culture, the team, the family atmosphere, it feels very similar.”
Now, in an eerily similar situation down to the culture, coaching staff, players and unfortunate injuries, the Fever are on the cusp of making the finals again.
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The Fever will play in a decisive Game 5 in Las Vegas on Tuesday night — something that only came about after Indiana forced the winner-take-all game with a 90-83 win on Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
“From Day 1, this has been a really special group,” White said on Sunday. “We’ve hit a lot of adversity, collectively. I had some tough stuff that I was going through personally, and this group just rallied around me, and they rally around each other, and they truly live the mantra of we over me.”
This is the first time in a decade that the Fever are playing in the WNBA semifinals but they have multiple people around the organization that experienced that series in 2015.
White was in her first stint as the Fever’s head coach at the time, taking over after Dunn retired from coaching. January was the Fever’s point guard, and Natasha Howard, who returned to Indianapolis this season as a seasoned veteran in the league, was playing behind Fever legend Tamika Catchings as a second-year.
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The semifinals were a best-of-three series at the time, and Indiana played the New York Liberty. The Fever lost the first game of the series, putting their season on the line, but Indiana didn’t waver.
Instead, the Fever won two straight games in an elimination situation to earn a berth in the WNBA Finals.
And 10 years later, through multiple losing seasons, lottery draft picks, and missing the playoffs year after year, the Fever are building back to excellence again — with some of the same pieces that brought them there a decade ago.
“I’m grateful,” Howard said. “We’re happy we’re back in the semifinals again, like a whole 360 all over again. I got to get the 2015 player back in my head again, and I’m just so excited that we’re back here. And with this group of young women, the job’s not done yet.”
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And it’s been a long road for the Fever to get back to their winning culture.
White left to take a coaching job at Vanderbilt following the 2016 season, and Catchings retired that same year. That started a flurry of coaching changes, roster shuffling, and a lot of losing.
Indiana didn’t make the playoffs between 2017-23, going a record-tying seven years in the WNBA without a postseason berth. Most of Indiana’s lottery draft picks during that stretch didn’t work out, and the Fever stayed at the bottom of the standings.
Things changed when Indiana got the No. 1 pick for the first time in franchise history in 2023, using it to draft Aliyah Boston. Then, the franchise got a second straight No. 1 pick in 2024 and used that one to draft Caitlin Clark.
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Finally, things were starting to look up for the Fever. Indiana went 20-20 under Christie Sides in 2024, making the playoffs for the first time in seven years. They were booted out of the playoffs in a first-round sweep by the White-led Connecticut Sun.
Following the 2024, White decided to move closer to home and came to Indiana. And she brought January and fellow assistant Austin Kelly with her. The Fever were on track to become a consistent force in the league once again. That culture — the all-in mindset that feels like family — is what White, January, and the coaching staff want to enforce.
They want Indiana to be a feared team in the league once again.
“We’re trying to bring that back, that tradition, that culture, back,” January said. “And part of it’s just family, and I think that’s gotten us through a lot of the adversity we faced this year, and it starts in the locker room. And if you’re all-in, it’s been we over me all year, and that’s what we’ve been preaching.”
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That ‘we over me’ culture has brought the Fever, five season-ending injuries and all, to a win away from the WNBA Finals.
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@gannett.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar’s YouTube channel and join Fever Insiders Live postgame.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Fever is one game from WNBA finals, how it happened
