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Las Vegas will play in second straight do-or-die series-clincher after dropping Game 4 in Indiana
- Terrel Emerson
- Sep 28
- 3 min read
After being just 40 minutes away from another WNBA Finals berth Sunday afternoon, the Las Vegas Aces will have to at least wait another 40 minutes.
The Aces dropped Game 4 of their WNBA semifinal series against the Indiana Fever, 90-83, Sunday, Sept. 28 from Gainbridge Fieldhouse. This year’s team is 3-4 against Indiana while finishing the season 1-3 from its home arena.
Before the loss in Game 4, Las Vegas had won back-to-back games and sat on the brink of the franchise’s fifth time in team history. It will now host Game 5 from the Michelob Ultra Arena in a win-or-go-home scenario against Indiana.
Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m.
It will be the second straight series that has gone the distance for the Aces after having eliminated the Seattle Storm in three games in the first round.
“Defensively, we’ve got to be a lot better as far as pickup points,” guard Chelsea Gray said. “And helping to rebound – I’ve got to be a lot better, can’t have so many turnovers and let them get out in transition.”
While both teams started fast offensively in Game 4, Las Vegas just appeared to be a step behind its opponent for the final three quarters of the contest. Indiana used an 11-2 run to close the first half with an eight-point lead heading into halftime.
In that first half, the Fever scored 11 fast break points on the way to 15 for the game on 17 total turnovers by the visitors.
Out of halftime, the Aces went on a 5-0 run and would even cut the deficit to as little as a point in the second half but it wouldn’t lead again. It led by just two points at 2-0 and 32-30 but those would serve as the team’s only two leads of the game.
Moreover, Las Vegas went scoreless in the fourth quarter for nearly four minutes of the 10-minute session.
“Just our defense,” Hammon said. “We didn’t get a lot of stops [...] It was us on the defensive end.”
Forward A’ja Wilson had a much faster start to this game after missing 11 straight field goal attempts in Game 3. She opened the game with makes on each of her first three attempts from the field on her way to 10 first quarter points which gave her 1,000 playoff points for her career.
She’d finish with 31 points on the night with 14 makes on 24 tries from the floor to go along with nine rebounds, four steals and three blocks. Along the way, she shot just 3-of-6 from the free throw line including a miss with less than 48 seconds left that would’ve cut the deficit to four points.
Most Valuable Player finalist Kelsey Mitchell missed the backend of an and-one moments before Wilson as part of her 25-point outing for Indiana. Mitchell was one of three Fever players with at least six free throw attempts while the entire Aces team shot 8-of-11 from the charity stripe.
“I was just looking at the fouls,” Wilson said. "[Forward NaLyssa Smith] had five, Chelsea had five, [guard Jackie Young] had five and that’s very interesting to me. Yeah, we foul here and there but that’s very interesting to me.
“But [forward Aliyah Boston] did say I had a special whistle, she shot 13 [free throws] today.”
Once again Young drew the defensive assignment on Mitchell as she attempted to do it all for Las Vegas including scoring 18 points and dishing out a game-high nine assists.
Gray was the final Ace in double-figures with 12 points, six of which came in the fourth quarter on a pair of late three-pointers.
In total, Las Vegas shot just 9-of-23 from downtown while shooting just under 50% from the entire field in the loss. While the offensive numbers appear to tell a different story, Wilson feels like the locker room knows what needs to change.
“The defense,” Wilson said. “That’s it.”
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