Hours after Napheesa Collier made a thorough, spectacular argument in favor of the idea that women should be paid to play basketball, the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever supported their colleague’s assertions by contesting one of the best and gnarliest games of the WNBA playoffs. The Aces won the Game 5 thriller in overtime, 107-98, against an increasingly depleted Fever team, and earned a ticket to their third Finals in four years. It is striking that as different as the circumstances of this particular run are from the previous two, when the going got tense, it was once again the eternal trio of A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray that slammed the door shut.
It took all the star power the Aces could muster, as the Fever played determined, cohesive hoops all night. Kelsey Mitchell’s electric scoring and Aliyah Boston’s straightforward excellence have been the best individual stories of the Fever’s run, though what made it special was the speed and connectivity of their team ball. Mitchell, suffering from cramping so severe that she was briefly hospitalized, and Boston, in foul trouble all night, played the fewest minutes of Indiana’s starters as Game 5, and the biggest performances came from further down the pecking order.
