INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — All-Star center Aliyah Boston finished with 24 points and 14 rebounds and Kelsey Mitchell scored 25 points to help the Indiana Fever avoid elimination in the WNBA semifinals with a 90-83 victory over the second-seeded Las Vegas Aces on Sunday.
The best-of-five series is now tied 2-2 with a winner-take-all Game 5 set for Tuesday in Las Vegas. The winner faces either top-seeded Minnesota or fourth-seeded Phoenix.
Sixth-seeded Indiana closed it out after Las Vegas mistakenly called an extra timeout with 30.1 seconds left in the game. The ensuing technical foul gave Indiana one free throw and possession of the ball, which forced Las Vegas to foul after the ball was inbounded. The Fever made all three free throws to extend the lead to 87-77.
“It was a good old-fashioned mistake,” Aces coach Becky Hammon explained after the game.
The television broadcast also showed Hammon telling her team in a late huddle they had two timeouts and a reset timeout remaining. She reiterated that point after the game.
The Fever used their “Stranger Things” uniforms, perhaps trying to send a message it wouldn’t let the high-powered Aces run roughshod over a team still missing four key, injured players — Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham, Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald.
Boston and Mitchell then delivered it by leading the Fever to their third straight elimination-game victory in this year’s playoffs. They won the final two games against Atlanta after losing Game 1 in the best-of-three first-round series.
Boston went 10 of 13 at the free-throw line while Mitchell had four assists. Odyssey Sims had 18 points and made four key free throws to close it out. Lexie Hull added seven points, seven rebounds and four steals.
“It’s just being confident,” Boston said. “The fans were great, everyone showed out, and we were confident shooting the ball.”
The Aces were led, as usual, by four-time league MVP A’ja Wilson, who had 31 points after a poor shooting performance in Game 3. Wilson had her 17th career playoff 30-point game to move within one of the league record that is shared by Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart. She became the seventh player in league history to hit the 1,000-point mark in her playoff career with 1,024 and added nine rebounds, four steals, three blocks and three assists.
Jackie Young had 18 points and nine assists, and Chelsea Gray was the only other Las Vegas player to reach double figures. She had 12 points.
This time, though, the Fever played it differently.
“I think we were the aggressor,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “And usually, when we’re the aggressive and move the ball, good things happen for us. We attacked. We played with a sense of urgency, we made the right reads and the right plays. The ball moved really well and we found the open player.”
It showed.
Indiana led nearly the entire first quarter and retook the lead for good when it closed the first half on an 11-2 spurt to take a 46-38 halftime lead. The Fever never trailed in the second half, but the Aces certainly made it difficult.
They forced a quick timeout after scoring the first five points of the third quarter and closed to 71-69 midway through the fourth. Boston and Sims answered that run with back-to-back baskets and Indiana managed to get enough loose balls and make enough free throws to send the series back to Las Vegas thanks, in part, to Hammon’s miscue.
___
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
