One playoff game in, and the Fever are already playing for their season. Here's how we got here. Indiana limped into the postseason as the sixth seed for the third straight year. A 2-2 final week ended with an 86-66 loss at Minnesota, and that game cost backup guard Ty Harris the season with a broken fibula. It also left Aliyah Boston nursing a right lower-leg injury heading into a best-of-three with the defending champion Aces. And the same day A'ja buries us, Clark and Mitchell pick up AP honors. Great timing, universe. This is Indiana Fever Daily. Decorated guards, a team facing elimination, and what Game 1 actually cost. We start in Vegas. We're staying with this story: Fever contender consistency test. Follow the show and you won't miss what comes next. Callie Fin, writing in Central Oregon Daily:
LAS VEGAS — The No. 3 seeded Las Vegas Aces beat the No. 6 Indiana Fever 102-85 in Game 1 of the first round of the 2026 WNBA playoffs on Sunday, Sept. 27. Reigning MVP A'ja Wilson led the Aces with 38 points, 16 rebounds, four blocks and two steals. She's the first player in WNBA history to record at least 30 points and 15 rebounds in multiple playoff games.
Thirty-eight and sixteen. Four blocks, two steals. I watched every possession and I still don't wanna open the box score. Open it anyway, because the record book did. Wilson's the first player ever with multiple 30-and-15 playoff games, and that was her eleventh career 30-point playoff night. Nobody in league history has more. Indiana just happened to be standing in front of it. Yeah, but Jackie Young with 21 and Chelsea Gray with 14? That's what kills me. You can survive A'ja getting hers. You can't survive the guards eating too. And last year, same matchup, the Fever stole Game 1 and dragged Vegas to overtime in Game 5. This time? Worst possible start. Down 1-0, one loss from done. Stephanie White said the past meant nothing going in. She was right. Just not the way she wanted. This one's from OurSports Central:
INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana Fever guards Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell have been named to Associated Press' All-WNBA First Team. Additionally, Clark has been selected as the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year. After missing 31 of the team's 44 regular season games in 2025 and the entirety of the Fever's playoff run due to injury, Clark returned to the court, setting both career and league records in the 2026 season.
Worst timing for a trophy ceremony ever. AP puts Clark AND Mitchell on All-WNBA First Team the same night A'ja does that to them in Vegas. Keep those two things in separate boxes, though. Clark missed 31 of 44 games in 2025, the whole playoff run, and came back to go 22.3 and 8.3, the first player ever top three in both. Comeback Player of the Year is about that season. Game 1 doesn't touch it. 891 points, 333 assists. Nobody had ever done 800 and 300 in one season. And Mitchell just set the league single-season scoring record at 1,086. Two first-teamers in one backcourt! Which is also the whole problem in a best-of-three. You've got the two best-decorated guards in the series, and a frontcourt that had no answer for Wilson. The plaques don't suit up for Game 2. Cydney Henderson and colleagues, writing in USA TODAY:
The WNBA playoffs started off with an upset and then went straight chalk. The No. 8 seeded New York Liberty defeated the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the opening game of a quadruple header to kickoff the postseason on Sunday, Sept. 27.
So USA TODAY puts us in the losers column next to Stewie and A'ja, and honestly? Fair. The one upset on opening day was the eight-seed Liberty over top-seeded Minnesota, and that's the Lynx team we ran off the floor by nineteen this month. Right, and New York over Minnesota was the only real chaos. Everything after that went chalk: Atlanta over Washington, Golden State setting a franchise scoring record on Dallas, and a three-seed handling a six-seed. Indiana losing in Vegas is what the bracket said would happen. Yeah, but chalk by seventeen? That's a margin problem. And I'm not taking any comfort from Minnesota going down. Beating the Lynx in September buys us exactly zero possessions in Game 2. Agreed, it buys nothing. But the Liberty just showed a top seed can drop a game in a short series, in a 2024 Finals rematch no less. Down 0-1, that's the only piece of league news worth hanging onto. Have feedback, story ideas, or a correction? Email us at indianafeverdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. We'd love to hear what you think and what you want us to cover next.
We're watching Game 2 on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 6:30 p.m. ET at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where Indiana faces a must-win on Prime. We'll also be tracking Aliyah Boston's lower-leg injury after she scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds in Game 1 despite being clearly hampered.
Links to every story are in the show notes, so take a look at the ones that caught your attention. That's Indiana Fever Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.