They hadn’t played the Fever since July 24, and the Aces lost by ten in Indianapolis on that day — the first of three losses in a five-game stretch before reaching an elite level. So the Aces and Fever hadn’t played for a while, and that’s part of what prompted Hammon’s confidence after beating Seattle.
“They haven’t seen the real Aces yet,” Hammon shared.
Well, now they have. The Fever and Aces battled in Game 1 on Sunday in Las Vegas, and Indiana dominated over the 2022 and 2023 WNBA champs. The visitors scored more points in every quarter, imposed their style, and relied on their stars on both ends en route to an 89-73 win.
So, the Indiana Fever have seen the real Aces now. And in their first meeting against MVP A’ja Wilson and company at their new, much-higher level, the Fever were the better team for essentially all 40 minutes of action.
“We wanted to come in and be the aggressor right away to make sure that we were dictating on the defensive end and we were dictating from a pace standpoint. They’re champions for a reason,” Fever head coach Stephanie White said postgame. “We knew that they were going to make runs. They made a big one in the third, and we responded with a big one. I’m proud of our team.”
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While it’s true that Indiana hadn’t seen what Hammon called the “real Aces” yet, this game showed that Vegas also hadn’t seen the “real Fever,” or at least the version of the team that has existed for about the last month or so. Shey Peddy signed a hardship deal with the Fever on August 19, then Aerial Powers did the same four days later. That was basically one month ago. Since the Fever and Aces last met in the regular season, Indiana lost Sophie Cunningham, Aari McDonald, Chloe Bibby, and Sydney Colson to season-ending injuries — and they announced Caitlin Clark as out for the rest of the campaign earlier this month.
The current Fever are an entirely different bunch than the squad that the Aces last saw. They ranked fourth in offense from the time they signed Powers, their final hardship addition who plays rotation minutes, to the end of the season and have found the perfect tempo for their team. When they were working in a group of new guards, their pace was slower. But now that the current roster has settled in, the Fever are a blur — they top the WNBA in postseason pace and were rising in that category to close the regular season.
Their end-to-end speed, made possible by Odyssey Sims and Kelsey Mitchell, let Indiana run around, though, over, whatever direction past the Aces. They raced down the floor after made shots and were disciplined in transition. That, combined with connected defense — particularly against Wilson — and excellent poise helped the Fever keep the Aces away. That’s what the real Fever can be at their best right now.
“It doesn’t matter who’s on the floor. It doesn’t matter who’s on our roster. They give each other the freedom to be themselves. They empower one another to be themselves and to be the best version of themselves,” White said. “And every time we’ve had a change, every time we’ve brought someone in, every time we’ve had rotational changes, they’re for each other… When you have that, it just gives you opportunities to do really special things.”
It was just one game in a best-of-five series, but the Fever certainly did special things in it. Mitchell was the highlight. The star guard, who the WNBA announced as the fifth-place finisher in MVP voting early on Sunday, was sensational — she finished with 34 points and did so in a variety of ways. She made four threes, eight twos, and six foul shots along the way. The Aces couldn’t keep her away from the rim even when she was their focus. On the rare play when Vegas contained Mitchell, she fired, and buried shots, from the outside.
“Clearly we had no answer for Mitchell,” Hammon said of the Fever star. The Aces lost by 20 in the minutes that Mitchell was on the floor.
Indiana’s defense can be up and down, but it’s been up of late. Their on-a-string play has made life more difficult for opponents. When they get their ball-screen coverages correct, good things happen.
In Game 1, that was the case often. Outside of Jackie Young‘s nose for the ball generating some easy shots, none of Vegas’ premier talents got going. Chelsea Gray had 13 points on 12 shot attempts. Jewell Loyd made just one of her five looks from the field, finishing with three points. They all struggled.
Wilson was the center of it all. Sunday morning, the WNBA announced that she won her fourth MVP award. Sunday night, Hammon was fielding questions about an off night from her top talent.
Wilson went 1 for 7 in the first quarter and hardly recovered from the slow start. The Fever showed her bodies in the lane and forced her into tougher, fading shots — she can make those, of course, but didn’t on Sunday. She finished 6 for 22 from the field with 16 points, and she coughed up three turnovers.
Aliyah Boston played fantastic defense. Indiana cleaned up the boards. And they attacked Wilson at the right times — the MVP had four fouls, and when she exited due to foul trouble in the third quarter, the Fever immediately went on a run. They limited Wilson enough to run away with the game.
“We know she’s an MVP. She’s the best player in the world at the moment. So we just tried to make all her buckets tough,” Brianna Turner, one of the Fever’s best defenders of late, shared. “We wanted to make sure that every shot had a hand in her face or she was feeling contact. So just trying to make every bucket as hard as possible and not give her any easy ones.”
The pace, the defense on a star, and the Mitchell of it all guided the Indiana Fever to a Game 1 win. They need two more of those to advance to the WNBA Finals, and their high-level play of late should give them confidence that such an outcome is possible. They showed it on Sunday. And they’ve been showing it often of late. Maybe that’s the real Fever.
“Becoming Caitlin Clark” is out now!
Howard Megdal’s newest book is here! “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar” captures both the historic nature of Clark’s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.
