Hoops Tonight - Aces-Fever Reaction: Caitlin Clark STRUGGLES, A'ja Wilson breaks WNBA SCORING RECORD
September 11, 2024 • 14 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to A'ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, and the Las Vegas Aces' 86-75 win over Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever. Jason discusses how Vegas slowed down an Indiana offense that has led the WNBA in scoring over the past 13 games, what went wrong for Caitlin Clark, and why A'ja Wilson is the definitive best player in the league after setting the WNBA single season scoring record.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume TD Tuddy taking it to the house in
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(00:24):
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(01:57):
to hoops tonight here at the volume heavy Winesday. Everybody.
If you guys are having a great week, we are
going to be reacting to the Las Vegas aces, going
on the road and getting a huge win in Indiana
against a red hot Fever team that had won ten
of their previous thirteen games, pretty much shutting down their offense,
the same offense that had been the number one offense
in the league over that thirteen game span. We're gonna
(02:19):
break down that game from the perspective of both teams,
and then we'll get out of here for the night.
You guys have the job before we get started. Subscribed
to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about our podcast feed wherever you't your podcast under Hoops Tonight.
We also it's really helpful if you live your rating
in a review on the podcast feed. And last not
at least keep ropping mail back questions in those YouTube
(02:39):
comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest
of the fall. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
a little bit of an unstoppable force versus an immovable object. Today, right,
thirteen previous games the Indiana Fever, we're ten and three,
number one offense in the WNBA, versus Las Vegas Aces
team that is the two time defending champ, has been
(03:03):
the fifth best defense in the league on the season,
but also has been ramping it up as of late
as they've been trying to get ready to defend and
finish off a three peat, and they've been the number
two defense in the WNBA in the previous five games
and so difficult challenge. Right this Fever offense has been
really really good. They've been scoring in transition a lot.
(03:25):
They've been the only the Las Vegas Aces are actually
the best transition scoring team in the WNBA, but the
end of Indiana Fever actually second on that list, and
especially as of late in the last couple of months,
they've been really really active in transition. They're constantly looking
to push Kelsey Mitchell is second in the WNBA in
transition points scored according to Synergy. Melissa Smith has done
(03:48):
a lot of great work in transition. Kaitln Clark just
constantly throwing kick ahead passes for the modern NBA fan
think like Tyrese Haliburton with those kickhead passes, with the
old school NBA fan thing like Steve Nash, the idea
of constantly looking for someone running their lane with the
opportunity to avoid facing the set defense. Indiana has also
struggled a little bit with ball pressure at times this season,
(04:08):
and that's just another way that they can try to
avoid that right and then when they get in the
half court, they just have this beautiful five out motion
that they've been running. They've been just the quintessential example
of modern five out offense. With Kelsey Mitchell on one
side of the floor and Caitlin Clark on the other
side of the floor, two really good screeners and rollers
that can also punish post mismatches in Aliah Boston and
(04:30):
Alissa Smith with Lexi. With Lexi hold as being one
of the most deadly catch and shoot shooters in the
entire WNBA this season, just spacing the floor over on
the weak side, they've just been really really hard to guard.
They get the ball from side to side and run
multiple actions on the same possession. They're excellent at running
decoy actions. They'll have like Aliah Boston go set a
(04:54):
ball screen and then as she's rolling, they'll have Kelsey
Mitchell come out of the opposite corner and like set
a cross screen force she'll get a quick post catch
on the other side, so it's like a fake ball
screen that's designed to set up a post up. Or
they'll have Kaitlyn Clark run on one side and reverse
the ball, and then they'll have a Leah Boston dribble
at Kelsey Mitchell and then she'll come up like she's
gonna catch it, and then she'll just quickly cut back
(05:14):
door and get a wide open layup along the baseline.
It's a beautiful offense to watch, but it depends on
two things in order for it to function. It depends
on Caitlin and Kelsey getting separation on screens, and it
depends on Aliah Boston and Melissa Smith scoring in the
(05:34):
role and beating mismatches in the post. Right. Those are
the two things that unlock that offense. Why because if
you can't get separation on the screen, if you're Caitlin Clark,
you can't bring up the screen defender. You have to
bring up the screen defender to open up those pocket
pass feeds to Aliah Boston as she's rolling to the rim.
(05:55):
If the on ball defender is staying attached to Caitlin,
then the person guard Aliah Boston doesn't have to come
out as often or as aggressively, which prevents those easy
catches on the role, right, and then when you're getting
the ball into the role and when you're getting the
ball into the paint for those deep post catches. It's
(06:15):
a huge part of Indiana's offense that Aliah Boston's just
been a monster as of late, just torching people, just
straight post up action. That was how she closed out
the game against Atlanta the other night, if you guys remember, right,
and so like, those are the two most important parts
of what makes the Indiana offense work. Caitlyn's got to
get separation on screens and Aliah Boston's got to score
(06:36):
on the role and score in the paint. Then, obviously
to lesser extent, the same goes for Kelsey Mitchell as
well as Melissa Smith. And I just got to hand
it to the Aces. They did an amazing job in
this game. Physical ball pressure on Caitlin all over the floor.
Did a good job too of kind of game, the
gamesmanship of working the refs like constantly being super physical
with Caitlin. But then anytime Caitlyn was physical back, they'd
(06:59):
flop and throw their heads back and got a couple
of offensive foul calls in her that way. That's just
smart gamesmanship. If you're watching on your couch and you're like, oh,
it's a bad call. Bad calls are part of the game.
You want to try to manipulate as many bad calls
in your favor as you can and avoid as many
of them as you can, right, That's part of basketball.
And Jackie Young in particular, as well as Tiffany Hayes,
I thought, just did a really good job just getting
(07:19):
up in Caitlin's jersey and just making it so that
the screen defender for the Aces just didn't have to
as consistently or as aggressively come out to the level
of the screen. And then the entire ACES frontline is
massive and athletic, and they just played really good physical
defense on Aliah Boston as well as Melissa Smith, and
the Aces held Caitlyn Clark and Aliah Boston to nine
(07:40):
for thirty two from the field, as well as just
twenty two points. I want to qualified a little bit
like there's a certain amount of like bad night going
on there. Leah Boston missed some of her like little
hook shots and pushots around the basket that she normally makes,
especially at the tail end of the game. In the
fourth quarter, I thought Caitlin got I thought in the
early part of the game, kateln and was forcing the
(08:00):
issue a little bit. She took a couple of bad shots,
a little bit worked up by just the emotion of
the matchup. But down in the second half of the game,
I thought she was playing some pretty good basketball and
she was just missing. She couldn't hit the like She's
been one of the very best catch and shoot players
in the league this year. She's been particularly deadly flying
off of off ball action to hit threes and got
a couple looks like that couldn't make them. She had
(08:22):
a couple of really clean looks off the dribble in
the fourth quarter that were off. She had that completely
unguarded catch and shoot three on the right wing that
was in the final like two three minutes or so
that she left way short. Like some of it was
just Caitlin's first bad game in a very long time,
and bad games happened in basketball. But at the same time,
(08:42):
like I want to credit the Las Vegas Aces defense
as well. They just did a really, really nice job.
And then on the other end of the floor, you
know what makes the Aces so hard to guard is
they just have really good guard play alongside one of
the best and most dynamic scores in terms of screening
and short rolling to the elbow that you'll find in
the kind of similar it's a little bit more of
(09:02):
an athletic and quick decision making type of vibe, but
kind of reminds me of some of the stuff we
see with Joel Embiid and Philly right, like constantly screening
and rolling to the elbows where he can look for
quick ISOs in like kind of advantage situations there. But
it starts with a bunch of really good guards for
the Aces that are good at turning the corner and
getting downhill. Again, similarly to the Caitlin Clark factor. With
(09:25):
Kaitlyn Clark, she does get a lot of dribble penetration
as well, but a lot of the times the way
she'll open up things on the pocket is just by
bringing the defender up to the level of the screen
right as we talked about earlier. She gets a little
separation from her defender just by setting them up for
the screen. Then she'll come off of that action and
bring the screen defender up, at which point she can
throw that pocket pass right, but with the aces guards,
(09:45):
it's more about getting downhill, and when they get downhill,
they engage that screen defender. And at that point, as
the guard is chasing over the top and the screen
defender is meeting the driving guard, Asia just kind of
hangs out around the elbow where those pocket passes can
come back to her. And then she's just been deadly
as a scorer at the elbows all season. Obviously, as
(10:05):
you guys saw, she just had tonight set the record
the single season scoring record in WNBA history, But a
big part of it is her scoring there at the elbow.
She's just absolutely deadly as a mid range jump shooter,
shooting about forty six percent on high volume on long
twos in that area. Doesn't really matter if it's you know,
along to out, you know, seventeen eighteen feet or if
(10:27):
it's a little closer twelve thirteen feet, she's just like clockwork,
like forty five forty six percent, like she's just gonna
knock down those shots. And then she can drive closeouts
from that position about as well as anybody in the league.
As you saw the play that ice the game, just
a simple rip through to the left, extend out, draw
the contact, and finish off the glass. She's one of
the best athletes in the league, one of the best
(10:48):
mid range shooters in the league. Let's just let's cut
the shit for a second. Agia Wilson is definitively the
best player in the WNBA. This Caitlin Clark story is
really cool and for a rookie, she's completely unbelievable. She's
arguably been the second best player in the WNBA over
the last two months or so, and she has a
really good chance to finish second in MVP voting. We
(11:09):
have a whole video that I worked on today. I
did about thirty five minutes on Caitlin Clark and everything
she does to unlock the Indiana fever offense, as well
as what Kelsey Mitchell does as well as with Aliah
Boston and Alissa Smith, do an extensive film dive into
what makes the fever so devastating on offense. And I
want you guys to check that video out when we
get to the end of this week. It's gonna be
(11:30):
I think it's coming out on Friday, if I remember correctly,
possibly Tomorrow's keep an eye on the feeds. I'll tweet
it out when it comes out. But all that's really cool.
But make no mistake, Asia Wilson is the best and
it's not particularly close. In addition to being a deadly
high volume score, she's also one of the very best
defensive players in the league. And it was kind of
interesting to see the dynamic of this game as it shifted.
(11:50):
So like the Aces bench really started to grow the
lead in that second quarter run. And we go into
the third quarter and the Aces are up by nine,
and predictably, Indiana comes out. They play some really good
basketball in the early third quarter. They end up cutting
the lead way down. It gets close, It gets a
little bit hairy there for a second, but then from there.
One of the issues that Indiana was having was clean
(12:13):
catches for Ajia Wilson around the elbow, and so one
of the problems they were having is they had to
give up those clean catches because they weren't doing a
good job on the ball the way they were with
Caitlin Clark on the other end of the floor. So
the Aces guards were getting deep dribble penetration, which forced
the Indiana forwards to catch to catch the ball handler
on the drive. Right that is going to leave Ajia
(12:35):
Wilson wide open. So the way Indiana reacted to that
is they started to rotate from the weak side. Usually
Melyssa Smith, but whoever it was that was nearby, would
rotate from the weak side and throw the contest at
Ajia Wilson. From there, Ajia Wilson started to pick them
apart with the pass. You guys, remember Kelsey Plum gets
wide open right corner, three sheets, another one, a couple
(12:57):
possessions later, and then Alicia Clark that fourth quarter hit
a couple huge ones as well, And so it's that
classic push and pull right. You try to defend the
action two on two. You defend the action two on two,
but you're getting too deep with your dribble penetration. That's
causing problems. So now Asia Wilson's catching clean around the elbow. Okay,
So we want to take away the catching clean around
the elbow. So we start to rotate from the weak side.
(13:19):
As soon as we start to rotate from the weak side.
Now we're in rotation, and the Aces just have a
lot of really good players and they're gonna beat you
just by moving the ball around and getting to the
open to the open shooter right and so from there
the Aces quickly pulled back away as we talked about
a couple of good looks for Caitlin Clark that she
missed a couple of tough miss free throws from Melissa
(13:42):
Smith as well as Fake Bentley, and it was just
an impressive effort on both ends of the floor from
the Aces to get their fifth win in their last
six games. Looking championship ready, and we will see what happens.
We plan on doing some coverage around the WNBA in
the playoffs, so make sure you subscribe to the hoops
and at YouTube channel, call me on Twitter at Underscore jsonlt.
I'll be sending out show announcements as well as when
(14:04):
I post that Indiana fever clip. You guys can find
that on my Twitter feed, but I'll tweet it out,
but you can also find it on our YouTube channel
as well as wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. As always, as
sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. For all
of you who are new, don't forget to subscribe and
circle back over the next month as we cover the
WNBA playoffs. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you
(14:26):
next time the volume. What's up guys? As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
The volume TD Tuddy taking it to the house in
for six. Whatever you call a touchdown, one thing is
for sure. Touchdowns matter more at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official
sports betting partner of the NFL. On the ground, in
the air, from the special teams or defense, we don't
care how they score them. We want to bet on touchdowns,
and DraftKings Sportsbook is the number one place to bet touchdowns.
(00:24):
Ready to place your first NFL bet? Try betting on
something simple like a player to score a touchdown. Go
to the Draft Kings Sportsbook app and make your bet today.
You can also bet on who's gonna win the Super
Bowl Right now. DraftKings has the Kansas City Chiefs as
the favorite at plus five hundred, followed by the San
Francisco forty nine ers at plus six hundred. Ready to
do a touchdown dance of your own? New DraftKings customers
bet five dollars to get two hundred and fifty dollars
(00:45):
in bonus bets instantly and get one month of NFL
Plus Premium. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code
hoops that's hoops, that's code hoops for new customers to
get two hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets when
you bet just five bucks and get one month of
NFL Plus premium only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours.
Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler in New York
(01:07):
call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text
hope and why to four six seven three six nine
and Connecticut help is available for problem gambling Call eight
eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of
Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age
and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets
(01:27):
expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For
eligibility terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co
slash ft ball. NFL Plus premium offer available only to
new and former NFL Plus subscribers. Additional NFL Plus premium
terms at NFL dot com slash terms. All Right, welcome
(01:57):
to hoops tonight here at the volume heavy Winesday. Everybody.
If you guys are having a great week, we are
going to be reacting to the Las Vegas aces, going
on the road and getting a huge win in Indiana
against a red hot Fever team that had won ten
of their previous thirteen games, pretty much shutting down their offense,
the same offense that had been the number one offense
in the league over that thirteen game span. We're gonna
(02:19):
break down that game from the perspective of both teams,
and then we'll get out of here for the night.
You guys have the job before we get started. Subscribed
to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about our podcast feed wherever you't your podcast under Hoops Tonight.
We also it's really helpful if you live your rating
in a review on the podcast feed. And last not
at least keep ropping mail back questions in those YouTube
(02:39):
comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest
of the fall. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
a little bit of an unstoppable force versus an immovable object. Today, right,
thirteen previous games the Indiana Fever, we're ten and three,
number one offense in the WNBA, versus Las Vegas Aces
team that is the two time defending champ, has been
(03:03):
the fifth best defense in the league on the season,
but also has been ramping it up as of late
as they've been trying to get ready to defend and
finish off a three peat, and they've been the number
two defense in the WNBA in the previous five games
and so difficult challenge. Right this Fever offense has been
really really good. They've been scoring in transition a lot.
(03:25):
They've been the only the Las Vegas Aces are actually
the best transition scoring team in the WNBA, but the
end of Indiana Fever actually second on that list, and
especially as of late in the last couple of months,
they've been really really active in transition. They're constantly looking
to push Kelsey Mitchell is second in the WNBA in
transition points scored according to Synergy. Melissa Smith has done
(03:48):
a lot of great work in transition. Kaitln Clark just
constantly throwing kick ahead passes for the modern NBA fan
think like Tyrese Haliburton with those kickhead passes, with the
old school NBA fan thing like Steve Nash, the idea
of constantly looking for someone running their lane with the
opportunity to avoid facing the set defense. Indiana has also
struggled a little bit with ball pressure at times this season,
(04:08):
and that's just another way that they can try to
avoid that right and then when they get in the
half court, they just have this beautiful five out motion
that they've been running. They've been just the quintessential example
of modern five out offense. With Kelsey Mitchell on one
side of the floor and Caitlin Clark on the other
side of the floor, two really good screeners and rollers
that can also punish post mismatches in Aliah Boston and
(04:30):
Alissa Smith with Lexi. With Lexi hold as being one
of the most deadly catch and shoot shooters in the
entire WNBA this season, just spacing the floor over on
the weak side, they've just been really really hard to guard.
They get the ball from side to side and run
multiple actions on the same possession. They're excellent at running
decoy actions. They'll have like Aliah Boston go set a
(04:54):
ball screen and then as she's rolling, they'll have Kelsey
Mitchell come out of the opposite corner and like set
a cross screen force she'll get a quick post catch
on the other side, so it's like a fake ball
screen that's designed to set up a post up. Or
they'll have Kaitlyn Clark run on one side and reverse
the ball, and then they'll have a Leah Boston dribble
at Kelsey Mitchell and then she'll come up like she's
gonna catch it, and then she'll just quickly cut back
(05:14):
door and get a wide open layup along the baseline.
It's a beautiful offense to watch, but it depends on
two things in order for it to function. It depends
on Caitlin and Kelsey getting separation on screens, and it
depends on Aliah Boston and Melissa Smith scoring in the
(05:34):
role and beating mismatches in the post. Right. Those are
the two things that unlock that offense. Why because if
you can't get separation on the screen, if you're Caitlin Clark,
you can't bring up the screen defender. You have to
bring up the screen defender to open up those pocket
pass feeds to Aliah Boston as she's rolling to the rim.
(05:55):
If the on ball defender is staying attached to Caitlin,
then the person guard Aliah Boston doesn't have to come
out as often or as aggressively, which prevents those easy
catches on the role, right, and then when you're getting
the ball into the role and when you're getting the
ball into the paint for those deep post catches. It's
(06:15):
a huge part of Indiana's offense that Aliah Boston's just
been a monster as of late, just torching people, just
straight post up action. That was how she closed out
the game against Atlanta the other night, if you guys remember, right,
and so like, those are the two most important parts
of what makes the Indiana offense work. Caitlyn's got to
get separation on screens and Aliah Boston's got to score
(06:36):
on the role and score in the paint. Then, obviously
to lesser extent, the same goes for Kelsey Mitchell as
well as Melissa Smith. And I just got to hand
it to the Aces. They did an amazing job in
this game. Physical ball pressure on Caitlin all over the floor.
Did a good job too of kind of game, the
gamesmanship of working the refs like constantly being super physical
with Caitlin. But then anytime Caitlyn was physical back, they'd
(06:59):
flop and throw their heads back and got a couple
of offensive foul calls in her that way. That's just
smart gamesmanship. If you're watching on your couch and you're like, oh,
it's a bad call. Bad calls are part of the game.
You want to try to manipulate as many bad calls
in your favor as you can and avoid as many
of them as you can, right, That's part of basketball.
And Jackie Young in particular, as well as Tiffany Hayes,
I thought, just did a really good job just getting
(07:19):
up in Caitlin's jersey and just making it so that
the screen defender for the Aces just didn't have to
as consistently or as aggressively come out to the level
of the screen. And then the entire ACES frontline is
massive and athletic, and they just played really good physical
defense on Aliah Boston as well as Melissa Smith, and
the Aces held Caitlyn Clark and Aliah Boston to nine
(07:40):
for thirty two from the field, as well as just
twenty two points. I want to qualified a little bit
like there's a certain amount of like bad night going
on there. Leah Boston missed some of her like little
hook shots and pushots around the basket that she normally makes,
especially at the tail end of the game. In the
fourth quarter, I thought Caitlin got I thought in the
early part of the game, kateln and was forcing the
(08:00):
issue a little bit. She took a couple of bad shots,
a little bit worked up by just the emotion of
the matchup. But down in the second half of the game,
I thought she was playing some pretty good basketball and
she was just missing. She couldn't hit the like She's
been one of the very best catch and shoot players
in the league this year. She's been particularly deadly flying
off of off ball action to hit threes and got
a couple looks like that couldn't make them. She had
(08:22):
a couple of really clean looks off the dribble in
the fourth quarter that were off. She had that completely
unguarded catch and shoot three on the right wing that
was in the final like two three minutes or so
that she left way short. Like some of it was
just Caitlin's first bad game in a very long time,
and bad games happened in basketball. But at the same time,
(08:42):
like I want to credit the Las Vegas Aces defense
as well. They just did a really, really nice job.
And then on the other end of the floor, you
know what makes the Aces so hard to guard is
they just have really good guard play alongside one of
the best and most dynamic scores in terms of screening
and short rolling to the elbow that you'll find in
the kind of similar it's a little bit more of
(09:02):
an athletic and quick decision making type of vibe, but
kind of reminds me of some of the stuff we
see with Joel Embiid and Philly right, like constantly screening
and rolling to the elbows where he can look for
quick ISOs in like kind of advantage situations there. But
it starts with a bunch of really good guards for
the Aces that are good at turning the corner and
getting downhill. Again, similarly to the Caitlin Clark factor. With
(09:25):
Kaitlyn Clark, she does get a lot of dribble penetration
as well, but a lot of the times the way
she'll open up things on the pocket is just by
bringing the defender up to the level of the screen
right as we talked about earlier. She gets a little
separation from her defender just by setting them up for
the screen. Then she'll come off of that action and
bring the screen defender up, at which point she can
throw that pocket pass right, but with the aces guards,
(09:45):
it's more about getting downhill, and when they get downhill,
they engage that screen defender. And at that point, as
the guard is chasing over the top and the screen
defender is meeting the driving guard, Asia just kind of
hangs out around the elbow where those pocket passes can
come back to her. And then she's just been deadly
as a scorer at the elbows all season. Obviously, as
(10:05):
you guys saw, she just had tonight set the record
the single season scoring record in WNBA history, But a
big part of it is her scoring there at the elbow.
She's just absolutely deadly as a mid range jump shooter,
shooting about forty six percent on high volume on long
twos in that area. Doesn't really matter if it's you know,
along to out, you know, seventeen eighteen feet or if
(10:27):
it's a little closer twelve thirteen feet, she's just like clockwork,
like forty five forty six percent, like she's just gonna
knock down those shots. And then she can drive closeouts
from that position about as well as anybody in the league.
As you saw the play that ice the game, just
a simple rip through to the left, extend out, draw
the contact, and finish off the glass. She's one of
the best athletes in the league, one of the best
(10:48):
mid range shooters in the league. Let's just let's cut
the shit for a second. Agia Wilson is definitively the
best player in the WNBA. This Caitlin Clark story is
really cool and for a rookie, she's completely unbelievable. She's
arguably been the second best player in the WNBA over
the last two months or so, and she has a
really good chance to finish second in MVP voting. We
(11:09):
have a whole video that I worked on today. I
did about thirty five minutes on Caitlin Clark and everything
she does to unlock the Indiana fever offense, as well
as what Kelsey Mitchell does as well as with Aliah
Boston and Alissa Smith, do an extensive film dive into
what makes the fever so devastating on offense. And I
want you guys to check that video out when we
get to the end of this week. It's gonna be
(11:30):
I think it's coming out on Friday, if I remember correctly,
possibly Tomorrow's keep an eye on the feeds. I'll tweet
it out when it comes out. But all that's really cool.
But make no mistake, Asia Wilson is the best and
it's not particularly close. In addition to being a deadly
high volume score, she's also one of the very best
defensive players in the league. And it was kind of
interesting to see the dynamic of this game as it shifted.
(11:50):
So like the Aces bench really started to grow the
lead in that second quarter run. And we go into
the third quarter and the Aces are up by nine,
and predictably, Indiana comes out. They play some really good
basketball in the early third quarter. They end up cutting
the lead way down. It gets close, It gets a
little bit hairy there for a second, but then from there.
One of the issues that Indiana was having was clean
(12:13):
catches for Ajia Wilson around the elbow, and so one
of the problems they were having is they had to
give up those clean catches because they weren't doing a
good job on the ball the way they were with
Caitlin Clark on the other end of the floor. So
the Aces guards were getting deep dribble penetration, which forced
the Indiana forwards to catch to catch the ball handler
on the drive. Right that is going to leave Ajia
(12:35):
Wilson wide open. So the way Indiana reacted to that
is they started to rotate from the weak side. Usually
Melyssa Smith, but whoever it was that was nearby, would
rotate from the weak side and throw the contest at
Ajia Wilson. From there, Ajia Wilson started to pick them
apart with the pass. You guys, remember Kelsey Plum gets
wide open right corner, three sheets, another one, a couple
(12:57):
possessions later, and then Alicia Clark that fourth quarter hit
a couple huge ones as well, And so it's that
classic push and pull right. You try to defend the
action two on two. You defend the action two on two,
but you're getting too deep with your dribble penetration. That's
causing problems. So now Asia Wilson's catching clean around the elbow. Okay,
So we want to take away the catching clean around
the elbow. So we start to rotate from the weak side.
(13:19):
As soon as we start to rotate from the weak side.
Now we're in rotation, and the Aces just have a
lot of really good players and they're gonna beat you
just by moving the ball around and getting to the
open to the open shooter right and so from there
the Aces quickly pulled back away as we talked about
a couple of good looks for Caitlin Clark that she
missed a couple of tough miss free throws from Melissa
(13:42):
Smith as well as Fake Bentley, and it was just
an impressive effort on both ends of the floor from
the Aces to get their fifth win in their last
six games. Looking championship ready, and we will see what happens.
We plan on doing some coverage around the WNBA in
the playoffs, so make sure you subscribe to the hoops
and at YouTube channel, call me on Twitter at Underscore jsonlt.
I'll be sending out show announcements as well as when
(14:04):
I post that Indiana fever clip. You guys can find
that on my Twitter feed, but I'll tweet it out,
but you can also find it on our YouTube channel
as well as wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. As always, as
sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. For all
of you who are new, don't forget to subscribe and
circle back over the next month as we cover the
WNBA playoffs. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you
(14:26):
next time the volume. What's up guys? As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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