INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Following the Fever’s lopsided loss to the Connecticut Sun on Monday, Fever head coach Christie Sides called out her team’s effort.

“You can’t at this level coach effort,” Sides said. “It felt like we were just trying to ask them to keep playing hard. You can’t start there. You can’t play in this league if you have to coach effort.”

Fever forward-center Aliyah Boston talked on Wednesday about how the team handled that. She said they talked about it after the game and the coaching staff said that they should not have to repeatedly talk about effort.

Boston also said that the effort at practice on Wednesday was good.

“It was a fun day just making sure that we’re staying loose mentally, but also focused on what we have to do,” she said.

Sides did not talk to the media at practice on Wednesday.

Eight of the 13 games the Fever have played so far this season have come against three of the four best teams in the WNBA (the Sun, the Liberty, and the Storm). They now have somewhat of a weaker stretch of the schedule, playing their next five games against teams that are at or below .500.

“I think the biggest thing for us is understanding that we’ve been challenged,” Boston said. “If there’s any adversity in games, just understanding that we’ve already been through that someway, somehow against any of the teams that we’ve played before so it’s nothing new for us.”

Team USA officially announced their roster for the Olympics this summer and while there was a lot of conversation about Caitlin Clark not being selected, Boston was also not included on the team.

“The women that they picked are exceptional players,” Boston said. “That’s obviously still one of my goals and so at some point hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish that.”

The Fever return to action on Thursday at 7 p.m. at home against the Atlanta Dream.