Inside Caitlin Clark's slump from behind the arc -- and why it may not last

Clark is 1 of 17 from 3-point range over her last two games, and is shooting 31.9% for the season

The Indiana Fever still can't figure out the Las Vegas Aces. Despite leading by double digits in the first half, the Fever fell on Sunday afternoon, 89-81, for their 16th consecutive loss to the Aces. The last time Indiana picked up a victory over Las Vegas was Aug. 27, 2019 -- when Caitlin Clark was still in high school. 

Early on, it seemed as though Clark would help the Fever finally snap their losing streak against the Aces. While her shot wasn't falling, she was running the pick-and-roll to perfection with Aliyah Boston, and dished out six assists in the first quarter alone. 

The Aces eventually switched their coverages, however, and Clark started getting loose with the ball. She also never found her shot, and finished with 19 points, 10 assists and eight turnovers on 7 of 20 from the field, including 1 of 10 from 3-point range. 

This was the second consecutive game in which Clark struggled to find her own offense. Against the Golden State Valkyries on Thursday -- another defeat -- she finished with 11 points on 3 of 14 shooting, including 0 of 7 from behind the arc. 

"It's a 44-game season, I'm not going to play perfect for 44 games, and that's where I kinda really struggled last year at times," Clark said after practice on Saturday. "I held myself to such a level of perfection every single night that I wasn't giving myself much grace. I didn't play very well at Golden State but I wasn't defeated after the game. Was I upset at the way my team performed, absolutely, but that doesn't define our season by any means." 

Clark is not going to be perfect every night. No player will be. But Sunday's outing was the fourth time in her eight appearances that she's had a disastrous performance from the 3-point line. For the season, Clark is now shooting 31.9% from 3 on nine attempts per game. Dating back to her time at Iowa, Clark has never shot worse than 33.2% from 3 for a season. 

Caitlin Clark's worst 3-point shooting games this season

Game	Result	3FGM	3FGA	3FG%
May 22 vs. Dream	Win	0	5	0.0%
May 24 vs. Liberty	Loss	2	11	18.2%
June 19 vs. Valkyries	Loss	0	7	0.0%
June 22 vs. Aces	Los	1	10	10%

When Clark plays and shoots 40% from 3-point distance this season, the Fever are 3-1; when Clark plays and shoots 20% or worse from 3-point distance, the Fever are 1-3. As much as the Fever rely on Clark's playmaking to power their offense, they also need her to knock down shots. 

So far, Clark has been unable to do so consistently. But why? Clark didn't seem to have any answers after Sunday's defeat in Las Vegas. 

"There are going to be stretches that are really good and there's going to be stretches that aren't as good, and obviously it's frustrating as you want them to go in," Clark said. "Certainly a tough shooting night and I gotta find a way to continue to shoot and remain confident in myself because I know I put the time in. I don't feel like it's anything that's off, necessarily, but it would be nice if they went down."

Clark notably missed five games earlier this season due to a left quad strain, which was the first injury of her career. Her 3-point splits pre- and post-injury are almost identical, however: 11 of 35 (31.4%) before she went down and 12 of 37 (32.4%) since she returned. 

When you dig deeper into Clark's shooting, though, some clear trends emerge. Let's take a closer look at them to determine what matters and what's just noise. 

Home sweet home

The Fever have one of the best homecourt advantages in the league, and Clark thrives off the environment the crowd creates in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Her stunning performance in her return from injury against the New York Liberty, when she tied her career-high with seven 3s, was a perfect example. 

Her home and road splits this season, however, have been almost impossible to believe. 

Location	3PM	3PA	3P%
Home	22	50	44.0%
Road	1	22	4.5%

Clark's splits are so extreme that they essentially become noise, especially considering she was actually better on the road as a rookie (36.7%) than at home (32.3%). She's almost definitely going to wind up with better home numbers after this start, but the discrepancy should start to even out over the course of the season. 

Too much dribbling?

Clark spends the majority of her time on offense with the ball in her hands, which means that most of her shots come off the dribble. So far this season, she's really struggled to knock down those looks.  

Type of shot	3PM	3PA	3P%
Off the dribble	17	55	30.9%
Catch and shoot	6	17	35.3%

Finding a way to get Clark more catch-and-shoot looks without disrupting the team's offense has been a dilemma every one of her coaches has been trying to solve since she was at Iowa. 

Clark is the Fever's best decision-maker, and the offense flows much more smoothly when she's in control. When she gives up the ball, that not only forces someone else to play-make, but allows opponents to face guard her and be much more physical. While getting Clark off the ball to create some catch-and-shoot looks for her sounds great on paper, it's not always easy in reality. She's only made six catch-and-shoot attempts in eight games, and some of them have been extremely difficult. 

Still, it's fair to wonder if her shot diet is weighted too heavily toward off-the-dribble attempts, which are naturally going to be more difficult. Over 75% of her 3s have been off the bounce, compared to last season when the mark was 66%. While Fever coach Stephanie White and her staff could be more creative to help find a better balance, Clark could also clean up her shot selection. 

Just because she can hit some of these shots doesn't mean she needs to take them. Her 1 of 17 cold streak in the last two games has featured some particularly unnecessary attempts.  

To the left, to the left

Clark prefers to be dribbling to her left when she pulls up for a 3-pointer. That's been the case since she was in college, and remains true through the start of her second season in the WNBA. The numbers show she's clearly more comfortable shooting when she's moving that direction. 

Shot type	3PM	3PA	3P%
OTD -- Left	7	17	41.2%
OTD -- Straight	2	4	50%
OTD -- Right	1	10	10%
OTD -- Stepback	7	24	29.2%

Clark's tendencies are highlighted on every opponent's scouting report, and there are times where defenders refuse to let her get to her left hand. When they do, she'll occasionally pull up going right, but never looks super comfortable doing so. More often, she tries to create some space with a stepback, which has not been successful for her this season. 

This is certainly a trend to monitor as the season goes along. Will she become more willing to drive when teams try to take away her outside shot? Can she ever get comfortable shooting going to her right? Or can she improve her accuracy on stepbacks as an another counter? 

Long-range attack

Clark's brand is built, in large part, on her 3-point range. She broke the women's NCAA Division I scoring record with a 35-footer, then drained one from just beyond that exact spot in her return to Iowa City this preseason when the Fever played the Brazilian national team. 

Caitlin Clark from DEEPER than her 22 logo on the floor at Carver-Hawkeye Arena 🤯 pic.twitter.com/WMy1xAVPcV

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) May 4, 2025

No one in the league can match Clark's willingness and ability to let it fly from anywhere on the court. As Natasha Cloud, the Liberty's defensive standout, put it recently in a video posted to social media, "When she crosses half court she can shoot that shit." 

The WNBA's 3-point line is 22 feet, 1 and 3/4 inches away from the basket. Clark has taken 61 of her 72 3-point attempts from 25-plus feet, and her 5.6 attempts per game from 25-29 feet lead the league. Despite the fact that she's only played eight games due to injury, her 16 attempts from 30-plus feet are also more than any other player. 

Distance	3PM	3PA	3P%
22-25 feet	2	11	18.1%
25-29 feet	16	45	35.6%
30+ feet	5	16	31.3%

Clark shooting worse than 20% on her closest 3-point attempts this season is one the most interesting aspects of her inconsistent start. There's zero reason to expect that to continue. 

As for Clark's deeper attempts, she's completely comfortable from 25-29 feet. Once she gets beyond that distance, however, there's a case to be made that she could be more discerning at times, even though her longest shots do help open up space behind the defense by forcing teams to guard her 35 feet from the rim.  

Close calls

Clark faces more defensive attention than just about any player in the league. Opponents' entire schemes are geared toward slowing her down, and she's more often seeing multiple defenders than operating in any sort of space. The result is a whole lot of contested shots. 

Note: The WNBA's stats site does not provide closest defender data like the NBA does, so this was all tracked by hand and should not be considered an exact science. While the majority of the shots were clearly defined, more than a few could have gone either way depending on how you felt about the nature of the closout. 

Shot type	3PM	3PA	3P%
Contested	13	44	29.5%
Open	10	28	35.7%

"I think the biggest thing is what we as a staff have to do to get [Clark] better looks, higher quality looks," White said after the loss to the Aces. "Every [opponent's] game plan is going to be to make her score inside the three-point line, right? And the different ways they're going to do that: physicality, coverage, showing bodies, all the different things. We have to do a better job of getting her higher quality looks."

White and Co. have already made one change to help Clark and boost the offense: swapping DeWanna Bonner for Lexie Hull in the starting lineup early in the season. That moved has increased their spacing and this group -- the Fever's most-played with 92 total minutes over six games -- has a 108.9 offensive rating and a plus-17.3 net rating. 

Can the coaching staff do more? We'll have to wait and see. The aforementioned on-ball vs. off-ball dilemma makes drawing plays up for Clark to catch-and-shoot somewhat complicated.  

Conclusions

Clark is an elite shooting talent, but her shot diet and the way she's defended will likely prevent her from ever being among the league's 3-point percentage leaders. Even so, she's been poor from behind the arc this season by her standards. 

Breaking down all of her attempts into specific subsets gives us more insight into why, and highlights her strengths and weaknesses as a shooter. Here are the three biggest takeaways after watching and tracking all of Clark's 3s this season: 

1. Clean up the shot selection: Clark's audacity is a huge part of what makes her a special player, and you don't want to completely take that away. At the same time, she's launched a few too many unnecessary shots this season, particularly over the last few games. 
2. Develop a reliable counter when opponents prevent her from going left: This is a tough ask in the middle of a season, but will be vital to Clark's continued long-term success, especially in the playoffs. 
3. Figure out some way to get more open catch-and-shoot looks: Again, easier said than done when the Fever don't have another elite playmaker and opposing defenses ratchet up the physicality to the nth degree when Clark doesn't have the ball. 

For all of this analysis, some of Clark's struggles this season can be boiled down to simply missing shots you would expect her to make. There are some things she and the Fever can do better, but even if nothing changes she isn't going to shoot 31.9% from downtown all season. 

Has Clark's streaky shooting hurt the Fever in some games? Absolutely, but no one in Indianapolis is panicking. 

"I'm not worried about Caitlin's shot," White said. "Caitlin's shot is going to be just fine,"