Frustration is mounting for Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, who dropped to 3-9 this season following an 89-72 loss to the Connecticut Sun on Monday night.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Fever head coach Christie Sides was most disappointed in her team’s energy level throughout the game.

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

Clark seemed to echo her coach’s sentiment by criticizing their lack of energy in the loss.

“I thought we could have played with a lot better energy,” Clark said. “I thought we let little things on the offensive end frustrate us, and we didn’t play good defense. It’s not a recipe to win many games.”

Clark had one of the worst performances of her young career in the loss. The rookie was held to 10 points on 3-of-8 shooting with two assists and zero rebounds. She was minus-30 in 22 minutes on the court.

The Fever entered the matchup against Connecticut with some positive momentum after winning two of their previous three games, though sandwiched between those victories was a 104-68 loss to the New York Liberty.

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Connecticut, which was coming off its first loss of the season to the Liberty on Saturday, closed the first quarter on a 21-8 run. The Suns extended their lead to 20 at halftime and never looked back.

One encouraging sign for the Fever going forward is Aliyah Boston had a solid game. The reigning Rookie of the Year had her second double-double of the season with 14 points and 12 rebounds. She tied her season-high with five assists.

Boston has gotten off to a slow start this season, averaging 10.6 points on 42.0 percent shooting and 7.0 rebounds per game. She put up 14.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and shot 57.8 percent from the field in 40 starts as a rookie.

Back-to-back games against the Liberty and Sun, who are the top two teams in the WNBA by record, aren’t going to do many favors for a young rebuilding team like the Fever. They’ve had to play them six times in their first 13 games.

The Fever rank last in the WNBA in points allowed per game (89.8), defensive rating (113.5) and net rating (minus-15.0). They will look to get back on track Thursday when they take on the Atlanta Dream to start a three-game homestand.