Aces drop Game 4 in Indiana, face winner-take-all showdown with Fever

Down seven points with 36 seconds to play Sunday, Aces coach Becky Hammon called a timeout with a determined expression on her face as she turned to her clipboard.

The No. 2 seed Aces were scrambling to secure a Game 4 win in their best-of-five WNBA playoffs semifinal series at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. With a win over the Fever, they would secure a return to the finals for the third time in four years.

That championship pedigree is why some fans might have held on to hope that Hammon could use the stoppage to draw up a set of miracle plays. But she and her staff had committed a costly error: The Aces didn’t have any timeouts left.

Instead, the Aces were charged with an excess timeout technical foul and a loss of possession, ultimately sealing a 90-83 win for the Fever to force a winner-take-all showdown Tuesday night at Michelob Ultra Arena.

“That was a good old-fashioned mistake,” Hammon said. “We’ve gotta be sharper than that, for sure.”

Hammon’s synopsis could be applied to every aspect of the loss, which saw the Fever control nearly the entire game for their fourth win as an underdog this postseason.

A’ja Wilson led the Aces with 31 points, and guard Jackie Young added 18 points. It’s the first time the Aces have lost in the playoffs with Wilson scoring more than 25 points.

Kelsey Mitchell, Aliyah Boston and Odyssey Sims combined for 67 points to power the sixth-seeded Fever, who have beaten all odds to advance this far without star guard Caitlin Clark and three other season-ending injuries impacting their roster.

Here are three takeaways from the defeat:

1. Officiating still at issue

Hammon has been vocal about officiating this postseason, so much so that Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve referenced Hammon’s comments in the Friday night postgame media session that helped get her suspended from Game 4 of the Lynx’s semifinals series with the Phoenix Mercury.

In those comments, Reeve accused the WNBA of “malpractice” for the officials that were assigned to her team’s Game 3 loss. Hammon said in her pregame address Sunday that Reeve “did not tell a lie” in those critiques and then ended up being impacted by the exact crew of referees.

Isaac Barnett, Randy Richardson and Jenna Reneau, the officials who sent Reeve into a tirade, were assigned Game 4 of Aces-Fever.

Those officials gave the Fever a 34-11 edge in free-throw attempts, which Hammon immediately addressed.

“That’s very interesting to me,” Wilson said, pointing out the foul discrepancy.

“By interesting, do you mean that it’s (expletive)?” Hammon asked.

2. First-half discrepancies

The Aces stole Game 3 on Friday with an 84-72 victory on the Fever’s home court, and Indiana coach Stephanie White made sure her team came out prepared to keep its season alive Sunday.

There were 11 lead changes and five ties in the first half, but Mitchell and Sims powered an 11-2 run to end the second quarter and give the Fever their largest lead, 46-38.

The Aces entered the locker room at a disadvantage in most major categories.

Indiana had seven second-chance points at halftime to the Aces’ zero, and the Fever led in fast-break points 11-3.

Perhaps the biggest difference was that the Aces had given up 16 points on 11 turnovers in the first half, while the Fever had surrendered just seven points on 10 turnovers.

Although Kierstan Bell and Chelsea Gray were first to score in the third quarter, cutting the Aces’ deficit to three points, there was no momentum to be found.

Even with Wilson scoring 10 straight points for the Aces late in the third, the Fever didn’t let up, forcing back-to-back turnovers and ending the period with a 67-62 lead.

“It was better, especially in the first half. Really, when the ball moved, moved,” White said. “We got some tips, we got some steals. I just felt like we were much more aggressive. We weren’t reacting to everything that they did.”

3. ‘Rotations are rotations’

White said after Sunday’s win that the Fever “could not stop Dana Evans,” but that didn’t register in Hammon’s rotations.

Evans, a reserve guard who led the Aces’ bench production in Game 3, recorded 13 minutes and three points Sunday for her most limited playing time in the series. On the other hand, Jewell Loyd came off the bench to score six points in 32 minutes, the most she has played in the series.

Similarly, forward NaLyssa Smith, the Aces’ second-leading scorer in Game 3, played less than two minutes in the fourth quarter.

“It was just who I feel was best in the moment,” Hammon said. “Dana didn’t do anything specifically wrong. I think we weren’t getting downhill as well as we had in the past. So a different pathway. You saw more Megan Gustafson with (Smith) in foul trouble. So rotations are rotations. Everybody’s capable that steps out on that court.”

Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.