Our Thursday Thorns column returns to an all-too-pathetic, sports-mediot narrative today, as yesterday, the WNBA expansion Golden State Valkyries went on the road and buried the Indiana Fever—with the overhyped, overrated Caitlin Clark actually playing—by 19 points, putting on another brilliant defensive display of awesome conceived by Head Coach Natalie Nakase and her staff. That’s Valkyries 2, Fever 0 now.

Golden State improved its record to 10-9 and moved into sixth place alone, while the Fever dropped to 9-10 on the season, tied for seventh place … but not holding the tiebreak against the WNBA’s newest expansion team, interestingly enough. Clark only coughed up the ball four times in this loss, but she shot just 4-for-12 from the floor while scoring a mere 10 points in the process. We touted the Vs defense on Tuesday, and …

Yeah, it showed up again in this game, holding the entire Fever roster to just 30.9-percent shooting from the floor while forcing 14 turnovers and winning the rebounding battle, 36-29. Clark, for some reason only known to the WNBA brass, was chosen as a captain for the upcoming All-Star Game on July 19, despite the fact she was tenth on her own roster coming into this game for sabermetric value per minute played. Fact.

However, she keeps playing like a chump, with her overall shooting percentage this season down to 38.6 percent from the floor overall and a laughable 30.1 percent from three-point range. In addition, she was fifth worst in the league for turning the ball over before this game, despite missing half the games this season due to leg injuries. She can’t shoot, and she can’t hold on to the ball, but at least she can pass it.

Sometimes: the Valkyries held her to six assists, which is lower than her average (8.9). She might have had more assists if her teammates had shot the ball better themselves, but some of the usually reliable shotmakers on the team—Aliyah Boston, Lexie Hull, and Kelsey Mitchell—were also smothered by the Golden State defense. The Valkyries notched seven steals, which helped keep them in control of the game.

This was just the third road victory for the expansion team in nine contests, but it could be a turning point for the squad in terms of confidence for the future. Golden State had been coming up limp in the fourth quarter recently on the road, but in this game, holding another lead late, the Valkyries actually outscored the desperate Indiana team by a 16-10 margin over the final 10 minutes of the game. That’s progress, yo.

Either way, the league’s pathetic effort to award the Fever … something … via that Commissioner’s Cup nonsense continues to leave egg on the face of the WNBA as Indiana is once again a sub-.500 team with two head-to-head losses against the preseason pick for worst team in the league. It just goes to show that you can hype up someone all you want, but in the end, they have to produce or else it all falls apart in your face.