Indiana Fever players continued to go to bat for embattled head coach Stephanie White on Thursday, two days after White was booed at home following her impassioned pregame address to reporters, in which she defended her scrutinized comments about Chicago Sky wing DiJonai Carrington's flagrant 2 foul on Fever guard Sophie Cunningham and called out "the hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness" online that she believes is trying to "hijack" the WNBA.
Kelsey Mitchell told media on Thursday that the jeers White received ahead of the Fever's 106-92 win over the New York Liberty at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis threw the four-time All-Star guard for a loop.
"I told her to her face. I said, Coach, this is for you, in terms of just a sense of confidence, a sense of awareness that you're not alone," said Mitchell, a league MVP candidate alongside backcourt partner Caitlin Clark this season, via The Athletic's James Boyd.
"It really hurt my feelings to see her have emotions, in terms of not feeling valued and not feeling wanted in a place where she has to coach. At the end of the day, this is her job. So she has to show up, too. I think that people don't really recognize that. And I think that it's our job to remind her, it's our culture — I think we have to remind her that our culture is not going to let her fall to the wayside."
Mitchell added: "So I hope she knows that."
#Fever’s Kelsey Mitchell on Stephanie White being booed Tuesday:
“If anybody know me, I don’t play that. So, it really hurt my feelings to see her kind of have emotions in terms of not feeling valued, not feeling wanted … Our culture is not gonna let her fall to the wayside.” pic.twitter.com/5B3P6Jrfmt
Aliyah Boston, a four-time All-Star center, described the booing as "really annoying" as well as "disrespectful."
"I think when you are on your home floor and your team's getting announced and the coach is getting announced, I feel like there's no reason for any of that," Boston said, via Boyd.
"I mean, we come out here and we do everything that we can to win. I think Steph does a great job with us. We love her, and we appreciate her. … We kept the main thing the main thing, and we said we're going to come out here and we're going to get that dub."
The Fever followed through, with Mitchell, Boston and Clark combining for 69 points and 11 of the team's 16 3-pointers. As a result, Indiana improved to 21-12, good for the fourth-best record in the W.
#Fever star Aliyah Boston says she felt the “same way” as Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham when Stephanie White was booed Tuesday:
“Steph does a great job with us. We love her, and we appreciate her. So, to hear that, it was really annoying, honestly, and disrespectful. …” pic.twitter.com/iHSHgDRVHb
Following an offensive clinic that included Cunningham going 4 of 5 from deep and finishing a game-high plus-17 off the bench, she emphasized that, despite the "outside noise" facing the Fever, their locker room "is good."
Cunningham, currently at the center of the WNBA's latest controversy after speaking about transgender women in sports, explained that playing, coaching or simply working for the Fever comes with heightened attention and, in turn, distractions.
"But our locker room in there, it's tight, and we have each other's backs. Coach loves us," she said."
White was criticized for the way she initially responded to a postgame question about Carrington's foul on Cunningham this past Saturday. At the time, White praised the effort of Carrington, whom she oversaw in Connecticut as the Sun's head coach from 2023-24, and said that she doesn't "oppose the hard foul." Those remarks weren't received well by a contingent of Fever fans, especially considering Carrington took to social media after her ejection, posting "White Privilege" in all caps and tagging the Fever on Threads.
On Monday, Carrington insisted on X that she "never once claimed that the assessment of the foul was white privilege," however; she did not explain the meaning behind the original post.
On Tuesday, Cunningham referenced White’s reasoning that, when she gave her postgame answer about the foul, she hadn't had the chance to watch the replay over and over to adequately judge the severity of the infraction.
"And you know what, DiJonai, she is a hell of a player," Cunningham said. "She's a great defender. And so she coached her for I don't know how many years up in Connecticut. So give her her flowers, and she didn't see it, and that's OK. Me and Steph are great.
"Steph is great with all of us. So it's really the outside noise that's trying to distract us, but we're good."
White ultimately noted on Tuesday that she takes personally "any suggestions that I don't 100% always have my players back."
"I ride with them 10 toes down all the time. All the time," White said.
Clark conveyed on Tuesday how she can relate to White bubbling up. The 24-year-old guard, a three-time All-Star and one of the league's most popular players, sympathized with her head coach, saying that "it's OK to feel those emotions."
"I just told her, I've been through the same thing," Clark said. "There's been days where I've been really upset, and you can have the thickest skin in the world, but sometimes it does get to you. And I think our world is just like … we love to hate, we love to divide — that's all we want to do. Nobody wants to see each other succeed.
"I think that's a really painful thing for myself to watch. I feel like we need to do a better job at uplifting each other."
Clark also underscored on Tuesday that "there was no way we were losing" against the Liberty.
"I hated that our fans booed her before the game," Clark said. "That made me a little sick, to be honest. And you can disagree and this and that. And I get it. It's professional sports, people are going to boo, but at the end of the day, that's our head coach, and we're going to ride for her, and we're always going to have [her] back.
"That's never going to tear our locker room apart. So I just love her, and I feel for her because I know it can be a lot at times."
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