Boston’s career day, Clark’s double-double help Fever beat Dream in OT
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Aliyah Boston scored a career-high 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, and Caitlin Clark added 26 points and 12 assists to help the Indiana Fever beat Atlanta 104-100 in overtime Sunday and spoil the Dream’s Rhyne Howard’s third consecutive game with more than 30 points.
Boston made 11 of 16 from the field and 8 of 8 from the free-throw line while Clark posted her franchise-record 14th double-double of the season for Indiana (19-17). Kelsey Mitchell added 21 points and Lexie Hull scored 12 on 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range.
Boston was called for an illegal screen with 2:08 left in overtime and Howard hit a short contested fade-away jumper to give Atlanta a 98-96 lead 15 seconds later. Mitchell missed a reverse layup on the other end but Boston was there for the offensive rebound and putback with 1:39 remaining and then scored in the post with just over a minute to play to give Indiana a 100-98 lead.
Clark made 4 of 4 from the free-throw line from there to seal it.
Howard hit four 3-pointers and finished a career-high 36 points for Atlanta. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft has scored 30-plus points and hit at least four 3s in three consecutive games, tying the WNBA record held by Cynthia Cooper (1997) and Epiphanny Prince (2012).
Tina Charles added 17 points and 12 rebounds for Atlanta (12-23) and Jordin Canada also scored 17. Allisha Gray added 15 points.
Boston made a driving left-hand layup to make it 90-all with 18.1 seconds left in regulation and, after Gray missed a baseline jumper at the buzzer, forced overtime.
Canada converted a three-point play that gave the Dream a 16-point point lead with about seven minutes left in the third quarter but they went scoreless for more than five minutes until Howard was fouled as she hit a running floater and made the free throw to push Atlanta’s lead to 67-59 with 1:50 remaining until the fourth.
Clark threw a lead-pass to Mitchell for a fast-break layup to make it 71-all. Howard answered with a three-point play and added a 3-pointer before Naz Hillmon converted another three-point play and Gray’s offensive rebound and putback capped a 13-4 run that gave Atlanta a nine-point lead with 5:58 left in regulation.
Hull is shooting 23 of 34 (67.6%) from 3-point range since returning from a monthlong break for the Paris Olympics. The 6-foot-1 forward in her third season out of Stanford went into the game ranked fourth in the WNBA in 3-point percentage (46.7%) despite the fact that she was shooting just 28% (9 of 32) going into the break.