Las Vegas Aces vs Indiana Fever - WNBA Playoffs - Round 1 - Game 2 - 2026 | Fever Pitch

Game Summary: Las Vegas Aces vs Indiana Fever

First Quarter

Indiana drew up its first play in the locker room for Clark, and she delivered, burying a 28-foot three off a Boston feed 15 seconds in. Wilson answered with a 19-footer off a Young assist, and the first six minutes turned into a dogfight: four ties and nobody up by more than three. Gray hit a 24-foot three at 7:29, Makayla Timpson scored twice at the rim, and Young’s running layup and 25-foot three put Las Vegas up 11-10. Stephanie Talbot erased a Mitchell layup at the other end.

Mitchell tied it 13-13 with a three at 3:56, and that is where the Aces took over. Las Vegas closed the quarter on a 13-5 run, and six of those points came at the free-throw line: Wilson twice, at 3:23 and 1:35, and Jewell Loyd after picking Clark’s pocket at 1:19. Cheyenne Parker-Tyus chipped in 4 in the quarter.

Then Gray finished it. She hit a 12-foot pull-up at 40.9 seconds and a 28-foot three with 10.5 left, and the Aces led 26-18 after one. Gray had 8 of her 10 points in the opening quarter. Las Vegas shot 50 percent, forced four Indiana turnovers and held the Fever to 35.3 percent. Clark and Mitchell had 7 apiece. At that point it looked like Game 1 all over again. It was not.

Second Quarter

Loyd opened the second with a 26-foot three off a Chelsea Gray assist, and at 29-18 the Aces had their first double-digit lead. Caitlin Clark was called for an offensive foul and a technical at 8:33; Wilson missed the technical free throw, and Indiana started cooking.

With Las Vegas up 33-22, two Aces turnovers sparked a 9-0 Fever run: two Clark buckets, a Boston floater and a Clark step-back three from 24 feet at 5:25 that forced Becky Hammon to burn a timeout. Talbot and A’ja Wilson scored off Young assists to push it back to 37-31.

Then the quarter flipped. Indiana went on a 15-2 run. Kelsey Mitchell hit a three and a layup, Monique Billings scored inside, and Raven Johnson added a layup and a floater. The only Aces bucket in that stretch was a Wilson layup at 3:07 for a 39-38 lead, and it turned out to be the last lead Las Vegas held all night. Four Aces turnovers fed it.

Talbot stopped the bleeding with a 5-footer, and Jackie Young made two free throws for 46-43. But Young was called for an offensive foul with 3 seconds left, and Johnson scored at the horn. Indiana won the quarter 30-17, shot 65 percent and led 48-43 at the half. Clark had 8 assists in the quarter alone.

Third Quarter

Young opened the second half with two free throws, and for a while she was the only Ace who could find the basket. She scored the first 4 Las Vegas points of the quarter, and Indiana went on a 10-4 run around them: a Boston turnaround, a Lexie Hull putback and two Caitlin Clark drives. When Aliyah Boston scored at 5:09, it was 58-47, and Hammon called a timeout. During that stretch, the Aces shot 1 of 8 from the floor and 0 of 4 from three.

The timeout worked, for a minute. Parker-Tyus drilled a 24-foot three off a Young assist, Jackie Young hit from 26 feet, and Parker-Tyus added a free throw: a 7-2 burst that cut it to 60-54 at 3:59. Then Indiana closed on a 12-6 run. Boston scored twice more, Mitchell made two free throws, and Clark hit a 31-foot running jumper at 1:58 that felt like a haymaker. Mitchell buried a 26-foot three with 4 seconds left for 72-57 before Young answered from 24 feet at the buzzer to make it 72-60.

The Aces shot 4 of 17 in the quarter, 23.5 percent, and every one of those field goals came from Young or Parker-Tyus. Young scored 12 of the 17. Wilson went scoreless in the third. That does not win a road playoff game.

Fourth Quarter

Down 14 after a Sophie Cunningham floater, the Aces came out swinging. Jackie Young made three free throws after Mitchell fouled her on a three at 9:22, Wilson made two, Young hit a 24-foot three off a Gray feed, and Loyd stole a Boston pass and buried a 22-footer at 8:00. Indiana called timeout, and Young’s two free throws out of it capped a 13-4 run that made it 76-73.

That was as close as it got. Hull scored on a reverse, Kelsey Mitchell went to the line twice, and Boston’s driving layup made it 84-75. After A’ja Wilson scored on a layup, Clark put the game on ice with back-to-back threes from 27 and 30 feet, 26 seconds apart. It was 90-79 with 4:30 left.

Then came the moment everybody will talk about. After Cunningham was called for a foul, a fan behind the baseline stood and pointed at Wilson. She stepped toward him, teammates pulled her away, and she was hit with a technical. She made both free throws off the foul, then four more after Clark fouled out at 2:45, and it was 92-87.

Aliyah Boston answered with a driving layup, Indiana made 5 of 6 at the line, and the Aces never got the stops. Final: 99-89. Young and Wilson had 12 apiece in the fourth. Mitchell had 9 for Indiana.

Bottom Line

The bottom line: Indiana fixed what went wrong in Game 1, and Las Vegas did not answer. The Fever cut their turnovers from 17 to 11, lived in the paint (58-26, on 29 of 48 inside), and let Caitlin Clark run the show. She scored or assisted on 58 of Indiana’s 99 points, and she did it after getting sick in the first half. Stephanie White called her first-half double-double “pretty incredible.”

The Aces made 30 of 34 free throws and still lost by 10, because they shot 25 of 59 from the field and 9 of 28 from three. Hammon put it on the defense, and she is right: Indiana shot 52.1 percent.

Jackie Young put her name in the record book in the loss. Her 13-for-13 at the line is tied for the third-most free throws without a miss in WNBA playoff history, and it was her third career 30-point playoff game. Gray’s 7 assists pushed her past 400 in the playoffs, making her the second player in league history with 900 playoff points and 400 playoff assists, joining Alyssa Thomas. Wilson climbed to No. 4 on the all-time playoff rebounding list with 569. The Aces were again without Dana Evans (right knee).

Now it is one game for the season. The Aces beat Indiana 3-2 in last year’s semifinals on the way to the 2025 title, but the Fever took the regular-season series 2-1. Las Vegas gets them at home Thursday. Protect the paint, keep Clark from dealing 15 again, and the Aces move on. Get outworked inside again, and the three-time champs are done in the first round. Follow every game on the FSM Las Vegas Aces hub, and look back at how the regular season wrapped against the Sparks.

Post-Game

Hammon did not hide from the defensive effort: “We were just poor as a group defensively. I thought we were a step behind all night,” she said. She also had thoughts on the officiating: “There was a lot of grabbing, hand-checking. I understand it’s the playoffs, but it shouldn’t turn into the NFL, either.”

On the fourth-quarter incident, Becky Hammon backed her star: “I’ve never seen A’ja Wilson go like that. So whatever was done, I can tell you she felt very disrespected in that moment.”

A’ja Wilson said the fan crossed a line and questioned why he was allowed back to his seat: “It’s just certain things that I’m not going to allow anymore, because it’s unacceptable,” she said. “You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to love me. You can hate me with all your heart. But you don’t know me. But I guarantee you will respect me.”

The Fever said in a statement that arena security spoke with the fan and witnesses, found no violation of the Fan Code of Conduct, and considered the matter closed. (Quotes via ESPN, the Associated Press and Yahoo Sports.)

TOP PERFORMERS

TEAM STATS

Points in the Paint: LVA 26, IND 58 | Second Chance: LVA 4, IND 6 | Fast Break: LVA 8, IND 11 | Off Turnovers: LVA 11, IND 16 | Bench: LVA 17, IND 14

Next up: Game 3 of the best-of-three quarterfinals is Thursday, Oct. 1, at Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas. Tip is 6 p.m. PT on USA and CNBC. Winner advances.

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