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Fever Fear Aces No More

Once upon a time the Indiana Fever could not compete with the Las Vegas Aces. What used to be one of the most lopsided matchups in recent WNBA history has now turned into an intriguing and balanced rivalry.

The three-time champion, Aces have owned the Fever since the team relocated to Las Vegas in 2018. From 2020 -2024, the Aces defeated Indiana 15 straight times. During that span, Las Vegas was riding the wave of three #1 overall draft picks in A'ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum. Add in Chelsea Gray and other key contributors and the Aces became the standard of the WNBA winning three championships in the past four years.

However, now the tables have turned and after years of dormancy, the Fever are rising under their top two first overall picks from 2023 (Aliyah Boston) 2024 (Caitlin Clark) and their best player, Kelsey Mitchell, who was the second overall pick behind Wilson in the 2018 draft.

The improvement for Indiana began last year as Boston came into her own while Mitchell has matured into one of the best guards in the league and has been the steady leader averaging over 18 points per game in each of the past seven seasons. Although Clark gets much the notoriety, Mitchell and Boston are the leaders and carry the load for Fever.

Although the Aces defeated Indiana in the WNBA Semifinals last year, it took them five games to dispose of the pesky Fever. Indiana won two of the three regular season contests in dominating fashion winning by 27 and 10 points in those matchups to snap the long dominance by the Aces. It was there the confidence began and suddenly the fear was gone.

This season the teams met twice in a span of seven days in Las Vegas which saw Indiana blow out the defending champs by margins of 16 and 34 points. This past Sunday, Indiana jumped out to an early lead and never looked back winning 109-75. This was coming off an 84-68 victory a week earlier.

It is clear the Fever are not intimidated as they once were in earlier years. Much of this comes from their experienced and fiery head coach, Stephanie White who was named coach of the year in 2023. She is getting the most out of this team and more importantly they believe they can win and compete for a championship.

Going back to the past 10 matchups including the postseason, Indiana was won six of the 10 games against the Aces with an average victory margin of 18 points per game.

Las Vegas still has the best overall and most experienced roster, but they have shown defensive lapses this season and Becky Hammon has harped on that point to correct the problem.

The Aces are no strangers to adversity and have risen to the occasion in each of their championship seasons. It was only last year when they were 14-14 and lost five games by at least 20 points including a 53-point humiliation to Minnesota on August 2nd. After that loss, they never lost a regular season game and went to win the title.

There is no panic with the Aces, but they have targets on their back and there are several teams that want payback in trying to dethrone them. New York, Minnesota and Indiana are at the top of that list.