You would never think that at one point in the second half, the Fever were behind by sixteen points.
Indiana successfully stopped Allisha Gray’s last-second shot in regulation to tie the game for Atlanta, and the Fever were forced into their first overtime of the season.
With 1 1/2 minutes remaining, an Aliyah Boston hook shot gave Indiana the lead after they had been swapping baskets for the majority of the overtime period. After that, Indiana successfully blocked shots from Tina Charles (17 points) and Rhyne Howard (36 points), and two free throws from Caitlin Clark clinched the victory.
With this win, Indiana’s record against Atlanta is now 4-0 for the season, while the Fever have swept the Phoenix Mercury, 3-0, twice already this season.
First-half turnovers set the tone
Indiana’s inability to settle into a rhythm throughout the first half may have been caused by their poor ball handling. Twelve turnovers occurred in the first half for Indiana, five in the first quarter and seven in the second.
Some were the result of little errors, such when Clark attempted to pass the ball to NaLyssa Smith in the paint over her head, only for the Dream to snag it out of the air.
The Fever were having trouble in the second quarter, so coach Christie Sides called several timeouts, including two in less than forty seconds of one another. Around the 6-minute mark of the second quarter, Kelsey Mitchell fumbled the ball over twice in a row after a timeout, prompting Sides to call one more.
Mitchell and the rest of the Fever benefited from that second timeout. Mitchell had just two more turnovers the remainder of the game and did not turn the ball over for the remainder of the second quarter.
Fortunately for the Fever, most of the Dream’s turnovers were not converted into points. Out of the 12 turnovers committed by the Fever in the first half, Atlanta only scored seven points, meaning that most of those free possessions went unpaid.
Indiana committed just three mistakes in the second half.
Fever peaks in the third quarter, then plateaus.
Indiana did not want to recall the start of the third quarter, when defensive blunders allowed Atlanta to go on an 8-0 run and increase their lead to 12 points. The Fever was behind by as many as 16 at one point in the third.
It was reminiscent of the Fever’s disappointing third quarter on Friday night, when Minnesota defeated the Fever by 11 points thanks to a 29-point third quarter. That quarter, Indiana was unable to bounce back, allowing Minnesota to outscore them by 17.
But the Fever didn’t let that run go to waste this time.
In the midst of the third quarter, Indiana went on an 11-0 run of their own and forced three turnovers from Atlanta. In that time, Mitchell and Aliyah Boston each scored four points; for Mitchell, it was her first basket since the first quarter.