WNBA playoffs: Short-handed Fever look spent while Aces find their way, ride momentum in Game 3

INDIANAPOLIS — A trying season of adversity might finally be taking its toll.

Friday night's Game 3 sure felt winnable for the Indiana Fever, but instead, their tenacious underdog season is on the brink after falling 84-72 to the dynasty-building Las Vegas Aces.

They had their chances in the first tightly contested game of this best-of-five semifinal series. But the buckets they usually make, missed. Open looks fell well short. The doink of free throws bouncing off the rim filled the din of a typically raucous Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“I did feel like we got a lot of really good opportunities,” Fever head coach Stephanie White said. “We had some breakdowns at times defensively, but we went through stretches where we really gave ourselves a chance on the defensive end.”

Few opponents in the Aces’ seven-year stretch of semifinals can say they held A’ja Wilson to 13 points in the postseason, as Indiana did on Friday. The Fever are one of three in her career to limit her to 20% or worse from the field in the playoffs, and followed the blueprint that won them Game 1.

But they never seized the advantage of that success in Game 3. After starting 1-of-8 from the perimeter and trailing by five, the Fever strung together three 3s from Kelsey Mitchell and Lexie Hull toward the end of the half. After the first two, the Fever allowed easy buckets from Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray.

Indiana took its first lead out of the break in a tighter third quarter that featured four lead changes and four ties. The Fever led by as many as five; the Aces by three.

Maybe, just maybe, the team of resilience could conjure magic again.

Then Wilson hit a mid-range shot for her third field goal of the game and her second in 70 seconds. Dana Evans, the Aces' sixth player of the series, made space to take the lead, 57-56. And after an offensive 3-second call on Aliyah Boston — a sudden side quest by the referees with three three-second violations after one the entire postseason — the Fever defense blanked, allowing the inbounding Gray to find a streaking Young.

“That’s probably gonna haunt Steph [White],” Aces head coach Becky Hammon said. “Because it was more than that, it was the momentum. Took the air out of the building.”

And possibly out of the season.

Andy Lyons via Getty Images

A team can only take so much. The Aces are a team of five Olympians. The Fever are a team of hardship signings. The box score reads like a hospital waiting room, and the injured Indiana players can’t all fit on the bench.

That hangs heavy on a player like Mitchell, who took 26 attempts and scored 21. In the second quarter, the 78% free-throw shooter barely hit the near side of the rim. An ensuing 3-point attempt bounced to the right and out of bounds. Boston did her work on Wilson but fell short offensively, despite the Fever finding her more touches.

White had to turn to her bench for matchup help instead of reinforcement. Rookie Makayla Timpson stepped in for veteran Natasha Howard down the stretch. Shey Peddy did the same for Odyssey Sims, who was 0-for-7 in 19 minutes.

Their intent to limit Wilson worked again. The difference was, the rest of the Aces played to their potential around her, whereas they waited for her to erupt in the Fever's Game 1 win.

NaLyssa Smith, who began her career in Indiana as their 2022 lottery pick, delivered a second consecutive standout game, scoring 16 points while shooting 8-of-13. She scored the first four of the fourth to pull the Aces ahead, 63-59, while waiting baseline as Wilson pulled gravitational attention.

“Even though A wasn’t getting her usual looks, that’s why Lyss was eatin’ good in the neighborhood,” Hammon said. “That’s why you like to play with good players. Because their presence opens up everybody else.”

The deeper the Fever go, the more their lack of that is exposed. Their active roster doesn’t possess anything close to the talent of the Aces. Now that Las Vegas is playing as a collective, it’s the battle of energies that Hammon described the day prior to Game 3.

The Fever were the ones who broke. In the aftermath, Mitchell said White told her team they could be emotional for the rest of the night only.

“But after today, you turn the page and you look forward to tomorrow, and stacking the day, and get the reps that you need to get to be successful on Sunday,” Mitchell said.

It may be the final one.