The Indiana Fever have lost plenty of tough road games over the years. Las Vegas has been the toughest venue of them all.
Indiana finally broke through on Sunday, beating the Aces 84-68 at T-Mobile Arena for the franchise’s first-ever win in Las Vegas. The Fever had dropped all 11 previous road meetings with the Aces since the team moved there in 2018.
Both sides were missing a superstar. Caitlin Clark sat out with a back injury for a third straight game, and A’ja Wilson missed her third game in a row with an ankle issue. Indiana didn’t need its franchise face to get it done.
Kelsey Mitchell carried the offense with 27 points on 7-of-18 shooting. Aliyah Boston added her sixth double-double of the season, finishing with 18 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks. Lexie Hull chipped in 10 points, including a buzzer-beating jumper that gave Indiana a 42-41 lead at halftime.
Indiana Fever pulled away in the third quarter, outscoring Las Vegas 26-14 to take control. Mitchell, Boston and Sophie Cunningham each knocked down three three-pointers in the frame, and Indiana never let the Aces back into it from there.
Ball security was the difference all night. Indiana committed just seven turnovers, a season low, while forcing 13 out of Las Vegas and turning those into 13 points. The Indiana Fever also won the boards 39-30, with 13 offensive rebounds fueling extra chances.
Aces coach Becky Hammon pointed to that stat as the game’s breaking point.
“Boards definitely hurt us,” Hammon said. “It gets to be a compounding effect when you’re not getting stops, or they’re getting second, third, fourth opportunities. It’s just super deflating.”
Jackie Young led Las Vegas with 15 points in the team’s lowest scoring output of the season. Jewell Loyd added 12, and Chelsea Gray finished with 10 points and six assists. No other Aces starter reached double figures.
Indiana’s bench mattered too. Raven Johnson grabbed three offensive rebounds in just 22 minutes off the bench, and Monique Billings added two of her own. It took a full-team effort to out-rebound a Las Vegas frontcourt that usually dominates that battle.
Fever head coach Stephanie White made the rebounding number the centerpiece of her postgame message to the team.
“13 offensive rebounds,” White said. “Extra possessions matter. We out-rebounded them 39-30. Really good stuff.”
A’ja Wilson’s Absence Against Indiana Fever Exposed Las Vegas’s Depth Problem
Wilson has missed three games now, and the Aces are 1-2 in that stretch. Hammon didn’t hide how much her MVP front-runner’s absence changes the math for everyone else on the floor.
“It’s not just A’ja’s points, it’s her gravity,” Hammon said. “Now we’re in a lot of situations where people are just really cheating off some players, and it’s hard to play like that.”
That gravity showed up in the box score. Without Wilson anchoring the paint, Indiana Fever held Aces to zero second-chance points over the final stretch of the game, a number that would have been unthinkable against a healthy Aces frontcourt.
Indiana Fever now sits at 12-8 and has won back-to-back games, with the second one coming against the defending champions on their own floor. The Fever still have Clark working her way back from injury, and the two sides get a rematch on July 12, this time in front of a healthy Wilson if the Aces get their timing right.
A nine-year losing streak in one building doesn’t erase itself without something real changing. For Indiana Fever, the belief that they can win anywhere just got a lot more evidence behind it. Now, they move on to face the Los Angeles Sparks.
