The Fever are used to playing road games that often feel like they’re at Gainbridge Fieldhouse or at least a neutral facility of the team’s strong national following.
That wasn’t the case Sunday when Indiana took the Las Vegas court in the face of a hostile crowd that even booed Caitlin Clark when she had the ball.
The results weren’t pretty. The third-seeded Aces, behind a spectacular performance from A’ja Wilson, trounced the No. 6 Fever 102-85 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three opening-round WNBA playoffs series.
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That means the Fever might be getting ready to play their last game of the season at home. They must win Tuesday night to force a deciding Game 3 back in Las Vegas.
“Certainly, we need to prioritize some things we did on the defensive end of the floor,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “But we also need to prioritize offense because Vegas is a great offensive team. They’re going to make tough shots, and some of the ones they made early were tough shots.”
The Aces, who have won three of the past four WNBA championships, are tough when they get up on an opponent. They went 9-4 in close-out games in 2022, 2023 and 2025, the years the Aces won titles.
And now Las Vegas will try to do it again in facing the league’s highest-scoring team in the regular season. The Fever averaged 96.0 points per game; the Aces were second at 91.5.
“That’s not a team you want to give any life to,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “They can just score in bunches. So stick to the game plan, be patient with each other on both ends and then just work hard on defense. You’re just going to have to work.”
It doesn’t hurt Las Vegas that the world’s best player is on its roster. Wilson, named the Associated Press WNBA Player of the Year on Sunday for an unprecedented third year in a row, dominated the Fever by finishing with 38 points, 16 rebounds and four blocked shots.
If that A’ja Wilson shows up in Game 2, the Fever likely will be headed to an earlier offseason than they hoped. But it’s not just Wilson. Guards Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young are decorated veterans, and the trio has been the core of the Aces’ dynastic run.
“I think there’s a commitment there to want to play and be great and try to pull the best out of each other, and that’s something that takes time,” Gray said. “It takes trust. When we’re getting on each other, we know it comes from a good place, and that doesn’t just happen overnight. There’s a commitment there to want to continue our legacy in this uniform and doing it together and doing something special.”
Both coaches criticized the first-round format, saying it should be five games and the league should consider staging series before the finals within each conference to cut down on the travel.
Maybe that changes in future years, but this is the situation and it’s a familiar one.
The Aces had to go through Indiana in last season’s semifinals before sweeping Phoenix in the WNBA Finals. But the Fever made Las Vegas work for it, taking the Aces to overtime of the deciding Game 5.
Maybe the Fever, backed by their home crowd, can push the Aces again and force a Game 3. Indiana can’t do anything about what happened in the first game.
“I think in a series, you flush (the result) regardless,” Fever All-Star post player Aliyah Boston said. “You come off a win, you’re like yes, that’s great, but you have another game. They’re going to come out and they’re going to play hard. We’re looking at it like we didn’t play our best basketball. It wasn’t great (Sunday), but we have another chance at home. So we just have to be ready to go, and that’s our focus right now.”
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