It is a funny twist of fate that the Indiana Fever have become such an engine for maddening WNBA storylines that have little or nothing to do with their actual on-court performances, because those performances are crazy-making enough on their own. Are the Fever a great team capable of melting any opponent in front of them, or a bunch of chumps who can't defend the paint to save their lives? Is Caitlin Clark one of the most dynamic guards in the league, or a bozo who can't stop turning it over and coming up short in big moments? Will this team ever be normal? These are the questions that have defined the Fever's season, and Thursday night the usual set of answers presented themselves: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and no.
The Fever lost to the Aces, 86-84, in an overtime thriller that presented the best and worst versions of both teams. For most of the first half, it looked like the Fever were on their way to recreating the 109-75 beatdown they handed the Aces back on July 12, which preceded a 13-point loss to the Valkyries that was followed by a five-game win streak in which the Fever scored at least 100 points in every game. The whiplash carried over into Thursday's game, which started with the Fever running out to a 42-22 lead with four minutes left to play in the first half. A'ja Wilson was having trouble getting to her spots, the Fever were playing fast, and Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston couldn't miss. Then Indiana fell into bozo mode.
Over the final four minutes of the half, Clark, Mitchell, and Boston combined to go 0-for-5 from the field, while Clark turned the ball over three times. This helped the Aces finish the half on a 15-0 run, and by the time both teams headed to their locker rooms, Vegas was only down by five. The Aces continued to put the squeeze on in the third quarter, outscoring the Fever 19-9; with 6:16 left to play in the fourth, they had built a nine-point lead.
At this point, Caitlin Clark was fully in hell. Through the first three quarters of the game she was shooting 3-for-11 from the field, 0-for-7 from three-point range, and had turned the ball over seven times. The thing with Clark, though, is that her worst games are always a threat to suddenly transform into her best, and vice versa. Throughout the fourth quarter and overtime, she showed us how easily things can slide in one direction or the other. The good stuff: Clark hit a signature pull-up three from 29 feet to put the Fever up 65-64 with just over four minutes left to play in regulation; a few possessions later, she stole the ball and laid it in at the other end to put her team up 69-68; and with 1:47 left to play in regulation, she hit another deep three to put Indiana up 72-70.
Now, the bad: Clark missed two free throws at the end of the fourth quarter that would have iced the game, allowing Chelsea Gray to hit a game-tying three pointer as time expired. And the worse: On the last possession of overtime, she got clamped by Wilson on the perimeter, just sort of meekly threw the ball into Wilson's hands before trying to flop her way into a bailout foul, and then watched in horror as Gray hit the game-winning three on the other end.
The final line for Clark: 20 points on 7-for-20 shooting, eight turnovers. Yikes.
It's natural for the attention to fall on Clark after a game like that, given how percussive her made three-pointers and game-breaking turnovers tend to be, but this result was just as much about the Aces' team-wide competence as it was about anything else. This is a team that knows how to play in and win every type of game, and how to press on an opponent's weaknesses when the result is in the balance. Clark's shooting and turnover numbers tell a story about this game, but so does the fact that the Fever once again allowed more than 40 points in the paint (they allow 43.7 points in the paint per game, the worst mark in the league) and put up 19 fewer shots than the Aces. The Fever can win a lot of games thanks to their whirring offense and audacious shot-making, and the Aces can do that, too. But they can also wrestle a game that's getting away from them back into the shape they want. Gray won them a thrilling game with two incredible shots, but so did the Aces' ability to win the possession battle, keep up the pressure in the paint, and turn the Fever over 21 times.
