A'ja Wilson Drops 36 as the Aces Eliminate the Fever
- 🔑 A’ja Wilson scored 36 points on 11-of-18 shooting, with 12-of-15 at the free-throw line, 10 rebounds and two blocks, as the No. 3 seed Las Vegas Aces beat the No. 6 seed Indiana Fever 94-83 on Thursday, October 1, 2026, and won the first-round series 2-1.
- Wilson scored 38 points with 16 rebounds in Game 1, 22 points in Indiana’s Game 2 win and 36 in the decider. Her three-game total is 96 points and 35 rebounds, an average of 32.0 points, computed here from the three official box scores.
- Chelsea Gray scored 23, Jackie Young had 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, and Jewell Loyd added 11 while starting for the injured Stephanie Talbot. Kelsey Mitchell had 23 for Indiana on 7-of-23 shooting, Aliyah Boston 19 and 10 rebounds, Caitlin Clark 18 on 6-of-18, and Myisha Hines-Allen 12 and 12 rebounds.
- Las Vegas led 67-55 in the third quarter, made one shot over the final 4:32 of the period and watched Indiana cut the gap to two points twice in the fourth. The Aces won at the line, 28-of-35 to Indiana’s 14-of-20, even though Indiana made one more field goal.
- The Game 2 fan confrontation in Indianapolis on Tuesday, September 29, is reported here as ESPN and The Athletic described it. The fan is not named. The Fever said no Fan Code of Conduct rule was broken, and the league reportedly imposed no discipline beyond Wilson’s technical foul.
- No semifinal game has been played. Las Vegas meets the winner of Golden State-Dallas, whose deciding Game 3 was set for Friday, October 2, at 9 p.m. ET and had not been played when we wrote this. This recap uses no betting odds or win probabilities and makes no predictions.
A’ja Wilson scored 36 points with 10 rebounds and two blocks on Thursday, October 1, 2026, as the Las Vegas Aces beat the Indiana Fever 94-83 in Game 3 to win their first-round series 2-1. The defending champion No. 3 seed ended the No. 6 seed’s season at Michelob ULTRA Arena and reached the WNBA semifinals for the eighth straight year. This was the first-round clincher, so no semifinal game has been played yet.
How did the Aces beat the Fever in Game 3?
Las Vegas led for most of the night, survived a cold third quarter and won the fourth 24-18. The teams were tied 31-31 after one. The Aces led 54-48 at halftime and 67-55 in the third, then made just one shot over the last 4:32 of the period and led only 70-65 going into the fourth. Indiana cut the deficit to two points twice in the fourth, but Las Vegas held on.
Caitlin Clark and Las Vegas’s Brianna Turner were each given a technical foul a little over three minutes in, after the two got into it near Indiana’s huddle, and Fever coach Stephanie White drew one in the second quarter. Clark took a blow to the mouth in the fourth quarter, was attended to because of blood and returned.
How did A’ja Wilson play in Game 3?
Wilson finished with 36 points on 11-of-18 shooting, 12-of-15 at the free-throw line, 10 rebounds and two blocks in 37 minutes. She was also 2-of-3 from three-point range. Twelve of her points came at the line, where she alone made only two fewer free throws than Indiana’s whole team (14-of-20).
Her series, game by game:
| Game | Result | Wilson |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (Sep 27) | W 102-85 | 38 pts, 16 reb |
| 2 (Sep 29) | L 89-99 | 22 pts, 9 reb |
| 3 (Oct 1) | W 94-83 | 36 pts, 10 reb |
In the Game 2 loss in Indianapolis she shot 5-of-11 from the field and 12-of-13 at the line. Across the three games that is 96 points (32.0 a game) and 35 rebounds.
Who else scored for Las Vegas?
Chelsea Gray scored 23 and Jackie Young 18, and Jewell Loyd added 11 while starting in place of the injured Stephanie Talbot. Gray and Young each played all 40 minutes, and Young added eight rebounds and seven assists. Talbot, a starting forward, missed the game with a leg injury.
| Aces | Pts | FG | Reb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gray | 23 | 8-15 | 4 |
| Young | 18 | 5-13 | 8 |
| Loyd | 11 | 3-10 | 3 |
| Parker-Tyus | 6 | 2-6 | 6 |
How did the Fever’s top scorers do?
Kelsey Mitchell scored 23, Aliyah Boston 19 and Clark 18, but the three combined to shoot 21-of-57. Clark had 11 points in the first quarter and seven after it, with six turnovers, and went 3-of-12 from three-point range. Myisha Hines-Allen added 12 points and 12 rebounds off the bench.
| Fever | Pts | FG | Reb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitchell | 23 | 7-23 | 2 |
| Boston | 19 | 8-16 | 10 |
| Clark | 18 | 6-18 | 2 |
| Hines-Allen | 12 | 5-9 | 12 |
Indiana finished 28-16 and held the No. 6 seed for the third straight year. Reports say Mitchell is headed to unrestricted free agency.
Where did Las Vegas win the game?
At the free-throw line, not from the field. Indiana made one more field goal (30-of-78 to 29-of-64) and outscored Las Vegas 69-66 on field-goal points. But the Aces went 28-of-35 at the line to Indiana’s 14-of-20, a 14-point edge in a game they won by 11. They also made 8 of 20 threes (40%) to Indiana’s 9 of 32 (28%), while Indiana won the rebounding 38-34.
What happened in the Game 2 fan incident?
With about four minutes left in Game 2 in Indianapolis on Tuesday, September 29, Wilson confronted a fan behind the baseline and was given a technical foul but not ejected, according to ESPN’s reporting. The fan is a private individual who is not named in the coverage we reviewed, and we do not name or describe them beyond what was published.
ESPN reports that after a foul was called on Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham, a fan behind the baseline stood and pointed at Wilson. Wilson stepped toward the fan and spoke to them, and teammates including Cheyenne Parker-Tyus, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kierstan Bell moved in between. Wilson stayed in the court area and did not enter the stands. Reporting relayed by Yahoo Sports, citing The Athletic, gives Wilson’s own description: the fan pointed at her and walked toward her. After the game she called the fan’s conduct unacceptable.
The Fever’s position, as ESPN reports it, is that arena security briefly escorted the fan out, then readmitted the fan after speaking with the fan and witnesses, and that the fan did not violate the Fan Code of Conduct. We take no side between the two accounts and report each as stated.
On discipline, ESPN, citing a source, and The Athletic, as relayed by Yahoo Sports, reported on Thursday, October 1, that the league would not discipline Wilson beyond the technical foul. Those are news reports rather than an official WNBA statement, and we did not find one, so the outcome is reported, not announced.
After Game 3, Wilson said she had prayed, cried and leaned on people close to her, and that she did not use the incident as fuel. “I put it behind me,” ESPN quoted her as saying.
Who do the Aces play in the semifinals?
Las Vegas plays the winner of Golden State-Dallas, and that opponent was not yet known when we wrote this. Golden State (the No. 2 seed, 32-12) and Dallas (No. 7, 27-17) are tied 1-1 after Dallas won Game 2, 108-100, on Wednesday, September 30. Their deciding Game 3 is Friday, October 2, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2 in San Francisco, and it had not been played when we checked on Friday afternoon, October 2 (US Eastern). Semifinal Game 1 is Sunday, October 4. Home court depends on that result, so we do not state it here.
For the full bracket, dates and results from all four first-round series, see our WNBA playoff bracket and schedule . The first-round story itself is settled: Wilson scored 36, the Aces made 28 free throws, and Las Vegas is through.
How we verified this
Final score and box score: Aces 94, Fever 83 on Thursday, October 1, 2026, was checked against ESPN’s official box score and recap, the league’s own site (an Associated Press recap) and a Yahoo Sports recap. All agree on the score, Wilson’s 36 points on 11-of-18 shooting with 10 rebounds, and the leading lines for Gray, Young, Mitchell, Boston and Clark. The box score also reconciles: field goals, threes and free throws add up to 94 and 83.
Game flow and technical fouls: The 67-55 third-quarter lead, the 4:32 stretch with a single made shot and the two cuts to two points come from the AP recap and ESPN’s recap, which agree. The halftime score (54-48) and the end-of-third score (70-65) are our arithmetic from the quarter scores and match ESPN’s recap. The technical fouls (Clark and Turner a little over three minutes in, White in the second quarter) agree across the AP recap, ESPN’s recap and the box score’s team technical-foul counts (two for Indiana, one for Las Vegas). Clark’s mouth injury appears in ESPN’s and Yahoo’s recaps with slightly different wording, so we kept to the detail they share.
Wilson’s series: Game 1 (38 points, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks) agrees across ESPN’s box score and the AP recap on the league’s site. Game 2 (22 points, 5-of-11 shooting, 12-of-13 at the line, 9 rebounds) comes from ESPN’s box score and recap, so it rests on one outlet’s data, but the points add up and it matches the 32.0 series average on ESPN’s player page. The 96-point and 35-rebound totals are our own sums.
Left out on purpose: a figure of 21 first-half points for Wilson (it appeared in one recap only), Clark’s four blocks (they appear in ESPN’s box score but are unusual for a guard and were not confirmed elsewhere), “reigning” and “four-time” MVP wording (sources differ), and regular-season averages (single source). One secondary summary placed the fan incident in Game 1; ESPN and Yahoo Sports both place it in Game 2 in Indianapolis, and Game 1 was played in Las Vegas, so we used Game 2.
Fan incident: The account follows ESPN’s reporting and Yahoo Sports’ relay of The Athletic’s reporting. The description of the fan pointing at Wilson is ESPN’s; the fan’s stepping toward her is Wilson’s own account as relayed by Yahoo Sports. The Fan Code of Conduct finding is the Fever’s position as reported by ESPN and Yahoo Sports. The no-discipline outcome rests on ESPN’s unnamed source and on The Athletic’s reporting as relayed by Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report; we found no official WNBA statement, so it is written as reported, not announced. The fan is unnamed in all coverage and is not named here. We do not repeat anything said to or by the fan and do not speculate about anyone’s motive or intent. Wilson is quoted once, briefly.
Still moving at write time: Golden State-Dallas Game 3 (Friday, October 2, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2) was listed as scheduled when we checked at about 2:25 p.m. ET on October 2, so the semifinal opponent and home court are not stated. The two teams’ records and seeds, the 1-1 series score and Dallas’s 108-100 Game 2 win were checked against ESPN’s standings and scoreboard, and the Sunday, October 4 start of the semifinals against ESPN’s and Yahoo Sports’ coverage.
Single-source items: Mitchell’s unrestricted free agency and Indiana’s third straight year as the No. 6 seed come from ESPN’s coverage alone.
No betting odds, spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page. Several schedule and preview pages we consulted carry sportsbook lines; none of that is used.