INDIANAPOLIS — It’ll be hard to find any contest this WNBA season that compares to Thursday’s Fever-Aces showdown.
Both teams had enormous scoring runs across the first three quarters, then played down to the final buzzer in overtime and regulation. A pair of costly miscues from Caitlin Clark at the end of each segment set up Chelsea Gray for two buzzer beaters, the first to send the game to the extra session and the second to give the Aces an improbable win.
“We still battled,” Clark said postgame. “We still fought and we put ourselves in position to win the game and then, honestly, it was me that made costly errors for us. So that’s on me to help us win. That’s my job. That’s what I get paid to do.”
No game is decided by the play or mistakes of one player, but Clark’s late faux pas will certainly draw attention, as is the case with everything she does.
At the end of regulation, both Clark and Mitchell had chances to ice the game away at the line in the final seconds. The latter split her pair, missing the second before A’ja Wilson stepped out of bounds to turn the ball over while trying to save it.
Clark would eventually get to the line with seven seconds left and the chance to make it a two-possession game with Indiana up 75-72. She would miss both looks, keeping the door open for Las Vegas. Gray took full advantage, coming up with a loose ball on a broken play before calmly burying a long-range look to tie the game.
“This can’t happen,” Clark said. “Those are free throws I usually make. Certainly frustrating. Obviously, one of them gives us a two-possession lead and I kind of cost my team there for sure. So that’s on me.”
The two teams traded baskets throughout the extra session with Wilson and Mitchell doing the lion’s share of the scoring for their respective teams. Eventually, the Fever found themselves in a familiar spot, leading by one with just under 30 seconds remaining.
A bit of confusion and miscommunication left Clark standing near mid-court with Wilson, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, in front of her, 30 feet from the basket. Despite the situation, Clark could not create a shot and turned the ball over after Wilson tipped a pass in the air and corralled it. The Aces did not call a timeout and raced down the court before Gray capped off her heroics with the game-winner.
All that came after some huge momentum swings in the first three frames. The Fever were flying up and down the court in the second period, blowing the game open with a 24-4 run to take a 42-22 lead with four minutes left in the first half.
In direct response, the Aces scored the final 15 points of the second period and the first seven points of the third quarter to take the lead. In the end, the Aces went on a 40-11 run that spanned their largest deficit and largest lead of the game, the latter coming at 62-53 early in the fourth.
Clark certainly had a role in pulling Indiana back into the game, including a pair of big threes that gave Indiana the lead, the latter coming with 1:48 left. An Aliyah Boston puback off her own miss put the hosts ahead 74-72 with 30 seconds left before the Fever forced a miss from Wilson to set up the frantic finish.
Postgame, Clark willingly shouldered the blame for the loss. However, on a night when the Fever turned the ball over 21 times, gave up 12 offensive rebounds and shot 35% in the second half, her head coach wouldn’t let her.
“I think you like that as ownership,” Stephanie White said. “But as an athlete and as a coach and as somebody who’s been around for a long time, it doesn’t come down to one singular thing. Like we know that. She’s disappointed in herself certainly, as I’m sure a lot of our players are. But we got to use it as fuel.
“And she’s going to be better. I know she’s going to be better on Saturday because of it. I mean she’s a competitor. She’s a fighter…But it doesn’t come down to one thing and I know, again, it’s easy to look at it and think that it does, but it was a collection of things. If we cut our turnovers in half, it’s a different ballgame.”
