Everyone has a plan until they match up against Caitlin Clark. There are not many who can disrupt defenses as and when they like, but the third-year point guard has certainly made that her reputation. That has been the storyline for most opponents whenever they have crossed paths with the Indiana Fever star guard. After all, there aren’t many players capable of taking over a game the way Clark can. And Kelsey Plum knows it all too well.

“There’s multiple things you have to do to slow her down,” Los Angeles Sparks star Kelsey Plum said during an appearance as a player contributor on Amazon Prime’s pregame coverage. “You’re not gonna fully stop her. Point number one, your pickup points. Staying between her and the basket is key, she thrives in transition. So your pickup point is huge.

“The other thing is being aggressive, but disciplined,” she further added. “There’s a lot of times where people can maybe overhelp, get out of position, and she’s obviously the best passer in the league. She’s Finding people. So being disciplined, being aggressive, defending without fouling, and hey she’s gonna hit some tough shots, but you wanna play the numbers over the course of the game and do what you can do.”

Now, if Plum’s answer sounds complicated, that’s because guarding Caitlin Clark is.

What teams often do is they enter games hoping to neutralize her completely, but that is simply unrealistic. Even on her bad shooting days, the guard helps the team by creating space or making plays, disrupting the defense one way or the other. But the first challenge begins with what Kelsey Plum called “pickup points.”

Being one of the fastest players on the team that leads the league in pace, Clark is at her most dangerous when the game speeds up. In that period, if she finds space in transition, she can pull up from well beyond the arc before the defense even has a chance to get organized, and that forces her defenders to play catch-up.

So to slow her down, the objective is simple: keep a body between her and the basket before she has the opportunity to turn a routine possession into a highlight. But let’s say the defender is able to keep up with her shiftiness, that still only solves part of the problem.

While she is known for her long threes, the 24-year-old’s passing has always been her superpower. As former player and WNBA analyst Debbie Antonelli often mentions, Clark can see all nine players on the floor, and that’s what makes her such a difficult player to contain.

After she gets past the first line of defense, the players guarding Clark’s teammates leave their assignments and rotate over to help in an effort to stop her. But that decision comes back to haunt them most of the time.

CC has built a reputation as one of the league’s premier playmakers by leading the league in assists as a rookie with 8.4 per game and again this season at 8.3, as per WNBA.com. So the moment teams commit extra attention toward stopping her, she quickly picks them apart with her passing.

Case in point: Caitlin Clark’s most recent masterclass against the Toronto Tempo on Tuesday. With the Tempo trying to slow her down, the Fever star responded by dishing out 14 assists by repeatedly finding open teammates in the 113-91 win.

Clark is responsible for over 40 percent of the team’s total points on almost every night. That is what makes her such a nightmare matchup. Defenders cannot comfortably go under screens because of her shooting range. They cannot aggressively trap her without exposing passing lanes elsewhere on the floor. Every defensive adjustment comes with a risk, and she has proven time and again that she can punish whichever option a defense chooses.

But the answer isn’t only being aggressive, but disciplined.

Clark is only improving in forcing fouls on her opponents, especially if she is deep inside the paint. Under the WNBA’s new set of rules to allow freedom of movement, the point guard has been one of the biggest beneficiaries.

Indiana is sixth in the league when it comes to team FTA (23.4), thanks in large part to Clark. The point guard has seen her FTA leap from 3.8 in 2024, when she played 13 games, to 5.9 in the 13 games she has played this season so far. Once at the charity stripe, she makes it count with an 88.3 percent efficiency.

So there is no perfect defensive scheme and no guaranteed way to shut her down.

“You have to guard her the whole court, the whole 94 feet,” DeWanna Bonner recently said of Clark. “She changed the game of basketball.”

However, through 2026, that task has proven easier said than done, with Caitlin Clark averaging 20.4 points per game while helping guide the Fever to nine wins. But Plum will soon have an opportunity to put her own blueprint to the test as her team is all set to face Clark and the Fever on June 27.