Fever Could End Aces’ Dominant First-Round Playoff Streak
The Indiana Fever drew a brutal first-round matchup against the Las Vegas Aces. They played them well in the regular season, but the Aces are a championship team for a reason. A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray rise to the occasion in the playoffs, and Becky Hammon is an excellent coach. Those four just don’t lose much. Led by Wilson’s two-way brilliance, they won three of the last five WNBA championships.
Since drafting Wilson and Young with back-to-back number-one picks after moving to Las Vegas from San Antonio, the Aces haven’t even lost a first-round series. In fact, last year marked the first time since 2022 that they didn’t sweep their first-round opponents.
The Fever could snap that streak this year. Eliminating the Aces in the first round is a daunting task, but the Fever have a small chance of pulling it off—perhaps even a better chance than any other lower seed might have had this year.
The Fever played the Aces well in the regular season
Past regular-season matchups don’t always matter a ton once the playoffs arrive, but the Fever beat the Aces twice before losing once in overtime, and that should give them at least some confidence going into the playoffs.
Most importantly, A’ja Wilson has struggled more against Aliyah Boston and the Fever than any other playoff team. She still averaged 23 points over the two games she played against Indiana this season, but that is well below her season average and the lowest scoring average against any of this season’s playoff teams.
She also shot just 39.6% from the field and only went to the free-throw line four times per game. Wilson is usually an incredibly efficient scorer, shooting 52.7% from the field for the season, and averaged almost eight free throws per game. She didn’t shoot worse than 45% from the field against any other playoff team in the regular season and got to the free-throw line at least five times per game against the other six teams.
Wilson will still get hers in the playoffs, but if the Fever can at least make scoring difficult for her, it will give them an opportunity to stay in the series for as long as possible.
Chelsea Gray also scored incredibly inefficiently against the Fever over three regular-season games. She shot just 31% from the field and averaged four turnovers. Moreover, the Aces just don’t have anyone who can replace what NaLyssa Smith offered them in the frontcourt.
Every single game of the Aces-Fever series will be must-watch TV for any basketball fan. It features the only two players to ever score 1,000 points in a season, two of the best passers in the world, and the two highest-scoring offenses in the WNBA. It should be a very close series, just like last year’s semifinal series.
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Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.