​INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham walked into practice Wednesday with every intention of talking basketball and only basketball. She still couldn’t completely avoid the latest off-court firestorm — her belief that trans women should not be competing in women’s sports.While Cunningham declined to directly address the issue that’s created another circus-like environment for the WNBA’s most visible team, the former Missouri star did talk about her pregame conversation with the league’s winningest coach, Cheryl Reeve, and challenged media members to find better stories than just the latest controversy.“There’s just so much distraction,” she said before practice, noting the ESPN interview that started the debate was filmed in February. “I think the WNBA media, all we ever do is cover everything except basketball. It’s like, what are we doing? There’s so much, like you can talk about other things. I think those are great stories. I think it shows fans, you know, who people are outside of the court. But I also think we’ve got to keep the main thing, the main thing.”Avoiding the trapsDespite the continually swirling storms, nobody has played better basketball than the Fever.Indiana is 9-3 since July 1, including a 5-2 record on two recent road trips. It beat defending league champ Las Vegas by 16 and 34 points during the first Western swing and can sweep the season series Thursday when the Aces make this season’s only trip to Indianapolis. Las Vegas eliminated injury-depleted Indiana in last year’s conference semifinals.The Fever’s five-game winning streak, which ended with Sunday’s 108-100 loss at Minnesota, matched the fourth-longest in franchise history. Indiana will try to extend its league record for consecutive 100-point games to seven on Thursday.Not enough?Indiana’s per game scoring average of 96.5 points is on pace to shatter the Phoenix Mercury’s previous single-season league record of 93.9 points in 2010.And as All-Star guards Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell and All-Star center Aliyah Boston produce career-best seasons. Cunningham thinks all three should be MVP candidates, even as she shoots 48.2% from the field and 45.2% on 3-pointers, both career bests amid all this new attention.The key to their success is no secret — experience.“My first six years (in the WNBA), I was with Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner and so that causes a lot of buzz on your team as well and so you just have to protect the locker room,” Cunningham said. “And then you come here and it was like 100 times more. So last year, you know, I think we had a lot of preparation for what distractions and outside forces could do to a locker room. So this year, we’re used to it. We’re tight in the locker room. We try to protect those walls like no other. We try to protect each other like no other.”Challenging courseA year ago, the leaguewide focus was on a new collective bargaining agreement and whether Clark would play a key role in pu