LAS VEGAS — Throughout the course of the WNBA season, the Indiana Fever went precisely as far as Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark were able to carry them. Considering they authored what can arguably be described as the greatest backcourt campaign in league history, that journey quite often took them a very long way.
However, when presented with a prime opportunity to exorcise some demons on Thursday night in the desert, the dynamic duo ultimately ran out of gas.
For the second consecutive season, the Fever’s championship aspirations came to a bitter and abrupt end in a do-or-die elimination game in Las Vegas, as the surging Aces captured a 94-83 victory. It was a contest defined by immense grit, but also by profound offensive struggles, on a night where Mitchell and Clark combined for 41 points yet shot a dismal 13-of-41 from the field and an icy 6-of-23 from beyond the three-point arc.
"I thought our offense got a little more stagnant in the second half," Caitlin Clark reflected during her post-game press conference. "I felt like we took a lot more late shot-clock contested shots where that was our only choice at that point of trying to get something up. You got to give credit to the Aces. I thought they played well. I thought they were ready to go and that’s what championship teams do. They played great. Like I said, they made it difficult, but we’ve made a lot of those shots throughout the year too."
The evening had begun with entirely different prospects. The star backcourt came out of the gates clicking with remarkable synergy in the opening quarter, successfully guiding Indiana to an early eight-point lead on the hostile road floor. Through the opening eight minutes and ten seconds of the contest, Clark had already poured in 11 points while Mitchell chipped in seven, staking the Fever to a four-point advantage.
Yet, from that exact juncture forward, the pair managed to convert just six more field goals over the final 32 minutes of regulation. Clark struggled immensely as the game wore on, finishing the night shooting 2-of-12 from the floor, missing all seven of her attempts from long distance, and committing five turnovers. Mitchell did her best to spark a late rally, scoring eight of her points in the fourth quarter as the Fever managed to claw back to within just two points. Even with that late-game burst, Mitchell finished shooting just 4-18 from the field across that same extensive scoring drought.
"Some of it is we missed some shots," Fever head coach Stephanie White said, assessing her team’s deep offensive woes. "We missed some shots that we typically make. There was a level of physicality that we couldn’t get to the rim. They turned it up a little bit… It’s a game in the margins."
With their typically reliable backcourt mired in an extended shooting slump, Indiana was forced to look to both a familiar cornerstone and an unexpected contributor just to stay afloat in the high-stakes matchup. Aliyah Boston turned in another strong offensive series, fighting through noticeable physical limitations to finish with 19 points and 10 rebounds.
Meanwhile, Myisha Hines-Allen provided a much-needed, explosive spark off the bench, tallying 12 points and 12 rebounds to mark her second consecutive impactful playoff outing. Hines-Allen’s most important sequence arrived during the second quarter, when she anchored a string of transition layups that successfully tied the game and forced an immediate timeout from the Las Vegas coaching staff.
Beyond that core group, however, the well ran completely dry. No other Fever player managed to score more than five points all evening. Compounding matters was the brilliant play of A’ja Wilson, who performed in peak MVP form for the Aces, leaving Indiana to scratch and claw just to remain within arm’s reach for the majority of the night.
The necessary offensive solutions never materialized as the clock wound down. Indiana shot a meager 6-of-20 from the field in the fourth quarter, a stretch that included a porous 3-of-11 from three-point range. Outside of the team’s "Big 3" and Hines-Allen’s valiant bench efforts, the rest of the roster combined for virtually nothing on the scoreboard.
The ultimate end result forced the Fever into a desperate strategy of hoping either Clark or Mitchell could suddenly catch fire and rescue the season down the stretch. Neither could find their elusive offensive groove, watching helplessly as the season ticked away possession by possession.
When asked by reporters after the game whether she had ever considered pulling back the reins on her struggling backcourt or altering their heavy shot diet, White did not hesitate in her response.
"I mean, shooters shoot," White said. "I think the only thing that we really talk about as the coaching staff is how we get high-quality shots. I mean, look, they’re both tough shot makers. They really are tough shot makers. How do we get them high-quality shots? How do we get them some easier looks when it starts to go dry a little bit? But there’s never a thought, like every time they shoot the ball, I think it’s going in, so there’s never a thought of anything other than the next one’s going in… They made it tough on us and that’s what championship teams do."
The defeat leaves the Fever organization packing their bags for a long cross-country flight home, marking a season-ending loss in the Nevada desert for the second year in a row. Much like the vast majority of postseason exits, the final chapter carries a distinctly bittersweet taste. For Clark, that bitterness was literal as well as figurative, as she took a hard physical blow to the mouth during the fourth quarter of a particularly punishing physical battle, adding a minor injury to the sting of defeat following an otherwise historic regular season.
"Just proud of this group," Clark said as she looked back on the journey. "We’ve weathered a lot. There’s always so much outside noise and a microscope on how we perform every day. A lot of really good moments. A lot of tough moments where we probably felt like we gave opportunities away. It’s probably what hurts a little bit. There was a lot of really good wins and not many nights where me and Kels are going to combine to shoot as poor as we did tonight. That’s sometimes a tough pill to swallow. But like I said, still a lot of things to be proud of."