LAS VEGAS — It is a wonderful time to be known as A’ja Wilson’s boyfriend, unless the plan is to exit a basketball arena quickly. First came the woman in the brown athleisure ensemble. She wanted a selfie with him. Then came the guy in the teal T-shirt. He requested a picture, too. Then the group of four in Las Vegas Aces gear. Then the little girl with the red bow in her hair that matched her A’ja Wilson jersey. Selfies on selfies, for one and all.
But Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat forward, obliged almost everyone on Sunday before he disappeared into a tunnel at Michelob Ultra Arena. Possibly because he was only star-adjacent and it was nice to get some attention in this town for once, and possibly because he understood the moment authored by the most beloved basketballer in the building deserved the memorials. It’s not every day that 10,000-plus sets of eyes watch one player unravel an entire team from start to finish. It only seems like it happens that often.
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How maddening, to be the team that doesn’t have A’ja Wilson and getting scheduled to play the team that does. This is not a condition unique to the Indiana Fever, though they felt it acutely in Game 1 of a first-round playoff series here, when Wilson put her foot down and tilted the earth and the visitors slid all the way to a 102-85 defeat. This is how things have gone in the WNBA for a while. A terrifying normal, in which a world-wrecker is totally unimpressed with herself.
“I don’t think I had an out-of-body experience,” Wilson said flatly late Sunday afternoon, leaning back with a microphone in hand. “We just showed up to work.”
Her workday concluded with this: 38 points, 16 rebounds, four blocked shots and two steals. In the history of the WNBA postseason, only four players have posted a 35-point, 15-board, five-block line, and Wilson now has done it twice. Nobody has done it with two steals to boot. And while there’s no space in a box score to account for heads-gotten-into, Wilson would have led in that department, too.
She swatted a point-blank shot on the very first trip for the most efficient offense in the league. She scored at every level, against multiple defenders. She drew fouls that drove the Fever to distraction. When the opposition pantomimes you, begging officials to see something no one else sees, it’s a tacit admission they don’t have real answers for what’s happening. “She was a clinic,” is how Aces coach Becky Hammon described her four-time MVP, which is arguable, since clinics aren’t supposed to make anyone feel sick.
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“I say this all the time,” Aces point guard Chelsea Gray mused after the game, “you can’t wait until a person retires to appreciate greatness.”
Still, this could be easy to digest for a team in the Fever’s position. One player was incredible. Maybe she won’t be as incredible again in Game 2 on Tuesday night in Indianapolis. There are ways to wrap their heads around this.
But the conundrum is larger, and actually a bit unsolvable.
The pregame conversation about down-the-rotation players making a difference for both sides was adorable. Gravitational pull moves the tides.
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So while Aliyah Boston was the best player on the floor for Indiana, going from listed as questionable pregame to 18 points and eight boards, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell missed 23 of 33 shots combined. Meanwhile? Wilson, Gray and Young combined for 83 points. If both lead trios were aware of the urgency required, only one had the wherewithal to deliver. It’s impossible to discount the difference in situational awareness, built on shared experience.
As Hammon said of her group after a Saturday practice: They know what time it is.
“They’re defending champions for a reason,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “They understand the moment. They understand that playoffs reunite a different level of intensity and urgency. And they came with it.”
As Hammon wound down her postgame remarks, Wilson and Gray joined her on the podium. She was mid-thought after a question about her Big Three’s impact on Game 1, discussing how her primary ask of them has nothing to do with performances or measurables.
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So Hammon went to the sources for confirmation.
“I don’t know how many times I talk to you guys about pulling greatness out of everybody else,” she said.
“All the time,” Gray responded.
“Every day,” Wilson added.
“Every day,” Hammon echoed.
It’s a trick Las Vegas employs that few other teams can, the Fever included. Indiana is still generally young enough to be in the throes of figuring out what great looks like, let alone having the type of stars who can impress that upon everyone else.
In the meantime, the Aces have who they have, A’ja Wilson primary among them.
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It is Hammon’s theory that other players are being strongly considered for Most Valuable Player honors simply because the world is tired of handing that trophy to the best player in it, again and again and again and again. And then there was a stretch during Game 1 in which the Aces’ hard-won control appeared to be slipping. In the din of Michelob Ultra Arena, the Aces coach consulted her point guard and concocted a brilliant plan for the next two-minute span.
However you want to do it, Hammon said, get the ball to A’ja.
Las Vegas reinforced its edge almost instantly. As such, the Aces’ singular plan for days like these was confirmed.
“Get out the way,” Gray said.
If only the teams who play them had that option.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Indiana Fever, Las Vegas Aces, WNBA
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