Atlanta had the ball, the crowd, and three cracks at a season-defining win. In the end, none of them fell — and the Fever made the Dream pay for it in overtime.
Indiana pulled away late, closing the game on a decisive run to escape State Farm Arena with a 95-91 overtime victory on Sunday, snapping Atlanta’s two-game winning streak in a matchup that lived up to its billing as a clash between the East’s top two teams.
“It’s disappointing to come up short when we had an opportunity to win at the end,” Dream Head Coach Karl Smesko said.
So Close at the Buzzer
The defining moment of the night came with 13.3 seconds left in regulation, when Atlanta had the ball and a chance to steal the game outright. Rhyne Howard fired from 25 feet near the top of the arc — off the mark. Angel Reese crashed the boards, grabbed the offensive rebound, and went back up — off the mark again. Naz Hillmon cleaned up that miss too, but her attempt rimmed out as the horn sounded.
“We got two looks right at the end of the game that could have won it, but they rolled out,” Smesko said. “Just kind of a bad break.”
That sequence forced overtime, but it also set the tone for a night that came down to matters of inches.
Gray’s Career Night Wasn’t Enough
Allisha Gray was the offensive engine all night, tying her career high with 32 points, including a nine-point second quarter that helped Atlanta seize a 44-40 halftime lead. Howard added 17, Reese chipped in 15 points and 14 rebounds despite missing six of her first seven shots, and Isobel Borlase provided a spark off the bench with 10.
But the Dream shot just 35.4% from the field for the game, missing 53 of 82 attempts, and the absences piled up. Jordin Canada sat out with illness — a loss Smesko pointed to directly as Indiana adjusted its coverage.
“The players we had today gave us a chance to win,” Smesko said.
Bri Jones was also out, though Te-Hina Paopao returned to the rotation.
The Zone That Changed the Game
Atlanta’s offense hummed for two quarters, but everything changed when Indiana switched to a zone defense in the second half. Smesko said the adjustment contributed to his team growing more passive down the stretch, and the Fever outscored the Dream 31-19 across the fourth quarter and overtime to erase what had been a competitive, back-and-forth affair. Without Canada to help break down the zone, Atlanta’s offense never found its rhythm again.
Caitlin Clark led four Fever starters in double figures with 26 points, and Indiana out-scored Atlanta in the paint, 38-36, in a game that saw the two Eastern Conference frontrunners trade hard fouls and momentum swings throughout.
Overtime Slips Away
Turnovers on back-to-back Dream possessions handed Indiana an 87-83 cushion with 2:57 left in the extra period, and the lead ballooned to 89-83 before Atlanta showed its fight. Hillmon converted a layup to trim the gap to four, and Howard followed with a three-point play to pull the Dream within 91-88 with 1:10 to go.
Both teams misfired on their next trips, setting up a tense final possession for Indiana. Kelsey Mitchell beat Reese down the lane for a layup that pushed the margin back to five, 93-88. Howard answered by drawing a shooting foul on Clark and calmly sinking all three free throws to keep Atlanta alive at 93-91 with 10.8 seconds remaining.
Clark iced it from the line, hitting two free throws to restore Indiana’s four-point cushion with 9.8 seconds left. Borlase’s desperation 3-pointer with six seconds on the clock rimmed out, sealing the result.
The teams split their four-game season series.
“We were right there,” Smesko said. “That’s why it hurts so bad.”
Atlanta (21-13) will look to regroup and get back in the win column as the stretch run of the season continues.
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