LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Fever, with about half their roster in street clothes, weren’t supposed to be this kind of challenge for the Aces.
And then when Kelsey Mitchell left Game 5 on Tuesday night because of severe leg cramping, victory seemed assured for Las Vegas — only to have Indiana keep fighting back.
But the Aces, pushed to the brink for the second postseason series in a row, survived 107-98 in overtime to advance to the WNBA Finals for the third time in four years. A’ja Wilson, with 35 points, and Jackie Young, with 32, became the first teammates to score more than 30 points in a playoff game.
The second-seeded Aces, who won the league title in 2022 and 2023, will host the fourth-seeded Phoenix Mercury on Friday in the opener of the best-of-seven championship series.
Las Vegas went on a 16-game winning streak to end the regular season, but was pushed to the edge by Seattle in the first round and then Indiana.
“I think that streak we went on prepared us for moments like this, how to fight through the highs and lows of the game,” Wilson said. “It allows us to never take our foot off the gas.”
Indiana made Las Vegas work for it even though the sixth-seeded Fever have been decimated by injuries, with Mitchell added to that list that includes Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham. Coach Stephanie White somehow not only kept the team together, the Fever reached the doorstep of their first Finals appearance since 2015.
“They have been an absolute joy to coach,” White said. “It’s an incredible group of women, an incredibly connected group. They’re a great example to everybody to what it means to just put one foot in front of the other to persevere, to welcome people into the fold, to not give in to circumstance."
Mitchell had scored a team-high 15 points at the time of her injury. Six Fever players reached double digits, including Odyssey Sims with 27 points and Natasha Howard with 16. Aliyah Boston finished with 11 points and 16 rebounds, but fouled out with 27 seconds left in regulation.
The Aces were closer to a three-woman show, with Wilson coming within three points of her playoff career high. Young, whose putback basket in the opening round against Seattle allowed Las Vegas to advance to this round, had a playoff career-high 10 assists.
Chelsea Gray — who briefly went into the locker room in early in the third quarter with an apparent right leg injury — scored 17 points, including eight in overtime.
Las Vegas needed every one of those points because the Fever challenged the Aces throughout, including after Mitchell got hurt. Rather than fade away and concede the playoff series to the home team, the Fever battled to tie the game at 84 on two Sims free throws with 52 seconds left.
After Young made two free throws with 27.1 seconds remaining, Sims answered with a drive down the lane for a layup with 22.5 seconds to go to again tie the game. Young missed a layup in the closing seconds and Jewell Loyd the follow to send the game to overtime.
The Aces then took the lead early in OT and didn’t give it up.
“They would just not go away,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said of the Fever. “The resiliency of (White's) group. They went through a lot of adversity this year and for Steph to keep everybody onboard ... I thought they did an unbelievable job all the way around. They just gas-pedaled the whole time, and it was tough for us.”
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