LAS VEGAS (AP) — A’ja Wilson scored 35 points and Jackie Young had 32 to lead the Aces back to the WNBA Finals as Las Vegas held off pesky Indiana 107-98 in overtime in the deciding Game 5 of the semifinal series on Tuesday night after the already-depleted Fever lost another star player to injury.
The second-seeded Aces, who won the league title in 2022 and 2023, will host the fourth-seeded Phoenix Mercury on Friday in the opener of the best-of-seven
championship series.
No. 6 seed Indiana made Las Vegas work for it even though the sixth-seeded Fever have been decimated by injuries, with star Kelsey Mitchell going down in the third quarter of Game 5 with an apparent left leg injury. She joined a list of injured Fever players that includes Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham.
Mitchell had scored a team-high 15 points at the time of her injury. Six Fever players reached double digits, including Odyssey Sims with 27 points and Natasha Howard with 16.
The Aces were closer of a three-woman show, with Wilson coming within three points of her playoff career high. Chelsea Gray — who briefly went into the locker room early in the third quarter with an apparent right leg injury — scored 17.
Las Vegas needed every one of those points because the Fever challenged the Aces throughout, including after Mitchell got hurt. Rather than fade away and concede the playoff series to the home team, the Fever battled to tie the game at 84 on two Sims free throws with 52 seconds left.
After Young made two free throws with 27.1 seconds remaining, Sims answered with a drive down the lane for a layup with 22.5 seconds to go to again tie the game. Young missed a layup in the closing seconds and Jewell Loyd the follow to send the game to overtime.
The Aces then took the lead early in OT and didn’t give it up.
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
