Robin Lundberg saw a glaring problem in the Indiana Fever’s second-quarter rotation on Friday, a decision he believes nearly cost them a game they should have dominated. The Fever were expected to beat the expansion Toronto Tempo, who enter the matchup sitting near the bottom of the league standings with a sub-.300 winning percentage. They did, of course, and even won by 18 points. However, the path there was far messier than anticipated as the Tempo mounted a threatening run in the second quarter and briefly took the lead early in the third.

For WNBA broadcaster Robin Lundberg, that near-disaster stemmed directly from coach Stephanie White’s rotation, which featured Raven Johnson, Myisha Hines-Allen, and Mercedes Russell on the floor alongside Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell. The way Lundberg sees it, that was a problematic lineup.

“But the problem for the Fever was at the end of the first half,” Lundberg said in the YouTube reaction video he shared on Saturday. “This lineup was in there, which was a heck of a choice by coach Stephanie White.”

“You look at the lineup that was on the floor there. Mercedes Russell, Myisha Hines-Allen, and Raven Johnson all together. Now, I want to single out Hines-Allen for good reasons in a second. But when you put those three on the floor together, you really got, for the most part, three non-scorers out there. And that’s problematic, and that’s really where the Tempo made their run,” he added.

Building on their six-point lead at the start of the second quarter, the Indiana Fever stretched their advantage to as many as 16 points. But with just around three minutes remaining in the quarter, the Toronto Tempo went on a 14-1 run, eventually cutting the deficit to just three points and arriving at a much more comfortable 53-50 halftime score.

The Tempo refused to fold, extending their momentum into the third quarter with an 18-4 run over a six-minute span across both halves to briefly take the lead. But that wake-up call forced the Fever back into engagement.

This wasn’t the first time an unconventional White lineup stalled Indiana’s momentum; similar multi-sub combinations struggled to generate offense in earlier losses to top-tier defenses like Connecticut and Las Vegas.

Even then, the Toronto Tempo still refused to simply go away. They spent much of the rest of the third quarter locked in a constant back-and-forth exchange of baskets with the Indiana Fever, before the Fever eventually started pulling away with about a minute left in the period. They closed the third quarter with a 79-73 lead and pulled away in the fourth, outscoring Toronto 24-12 to secure the 18-point victory.

For Lundberg, perhaps the near scare the Indiana Fever experienced could have been avoided had there been a better choice of lineup on the court during that second-quarter stretch. Lundberg was, however, quite understanding of the rotation intentions behind coach White’s decision and did not place all the blame on the head coach, instead pointing to the roster she had at her disposal.

“Now, that’s not all on the coach,” he said. “Uh, you know, and I’m sure the coach won’t be playing those type of lineups in high leverage situations. It also speaks to the roster construction.”

Lundberg’s point stands: White is unlikely to deploy such a combination in a playoff game. Against a weaker opponent, the lapse may not matter, but in the postseason, non-scoring lineups will be exposed immediately.

The Fever face the Washington Mystics next as they push toward the postseason.