Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell post big games to help Fever even series with win over Aces

INDIANA (AP) — Caitlin Clark finished with 27 points and 15 assists while reaching another milestone Tuesday night, and Kelsey Mitchell added 26 points to keep the sixth-seeded Indiana Fever’s postseason alive with a 99-89 victory over the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces.

Clark helped Indiana even the best-of-three series at 1-1 as she became the first player in league history to produce a points-assists double-double in the first half of a playoff game. She had 14 points and 11 assists in the first 20 minutes.

Game 3 will be played Thursday at Las Vegas.

The game was marred by an incident between A’ja Wilson and a fan who appeared to say something to Wilson after Sophie Cunningham was called for a foul. Wilson walked toward the fan, pointed at him and appeared to say something as two teammates, an assistant coach and security tried to separate everyone. Wilson was assessed a technical foul but was not ejected. The man was escorted out by security with Indiana leading 90-79 with 4:10 to play.

Las Vegas rallied to within 92-87, but even after Clark fouled out the Fever managed to hang on.

LIBERTY 87, LYNX 71

NEW YORK (AP) — Jonquel Jones had 21 points and 13 rebounds and No. 8 seed New York beat top-seeded Minnesota in Game 2 of their WNBA playoff series and advanced to the semifinal round.

Breanna Stewart added 21 points and Sabrina Ionescu had 18 to help the Liberty become the first No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed in the league’s 30-year history. The WNBA has undergone a number of different playoff formats. And in many of the formats, it wasn’t possible for those seeds to match up. However, in 2022 the league changed to the current format in which the top eight teams play in the quarterfinals.

Now, New York awaits the winner of the Atlanta-Washington series. The Dream are up 1-0 and play at Washington on Wednesday night. The semifinals begin Sunday.

A year after losing in the first round to Phoenix after going up 1-0 in that series, New York was determined not to have that happen again.

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