INDIANAPOLIS – Aliyah Boston scored a personal-high 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Caitlin Clark added 26 points and 12 assists to help the Indiana Fever beat Atlanta 104-100 in overtime on Sunday, spoiling the Dream’s Rhyne Howard’s third straight game of 30-plus points.
Boston made 11 of 16 shots from the field and 8 of 8 free throws, while Clark recorded her 14th double-double of the season, a franchise record, for Indiana (19-17). Kelsey Mitchell added 21 points and Lexie Hull scored 12 points, hitting 4 of 5 three-pointers.
Boston was called for an illegal block with 2:08 left in overtime, and Howard hit a contested fade-away jump shot 15 seconds later to give Atlanta a 98-96 lead. Mitchell missed a reverse layup at the other end, but Boston was there for the offensive rebound and putback with 1:39 left, then scored in the post with just over a minute to go to give Indiana a 100-98 lead.
From then on, Clark made 4 of 4 free throws to seal the deal.
Howard made four 3-pointers and finished with a career-best 36 points for Atlanta. The No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft has scored over 30 points and made at least four 3-pointers in three consecutive games, tying the WNBA record set by Cynthia Cooper (1997) and Epiphanny Prince (2012).
Tina Charles contributed 17 points and 12 rebounds for Atlanta (12-23) and Jordin Canada also scored 17. Allisha Gray added 15 points.
Boston converted a driving left-handed layup to tie the game at 90-90 with 18.1 seconds left on the clock and forced overtime after Gray missed a jump shot from the baseline as the final buzzer sounded.
Canada converted a three-point play that gave the Dream a 16-point lead with about seven minutes left in the third quarter. However, they went pointless for over five minutes until Howard was fouled as she hit a floater on the run and converted the free throw, increasing Atlanta’s lead to 67-59 with 1:50 left in the fourth quarter.
Clark threw a pass to Mitchell, who scored on a fast-break layup to make it 71-71. Howard responded with a three-point play and made another three-pointer before Naz Hillmon made another three-pointer 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 hitting 23 of 34 (67.6%) three-pointers since returning from a month-long break for the Paris Olympics. The 6-foot-1 forward, in her third season at Stanford, entered the game fourth in the WNBA in three-point percentage (46.7%), despite shooting just 28% (9 of 32) before the break.
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
