Caitlin Clark keeps Fever's season alive with fiery, historic performance in Game 2 vs. Aces: 'She was the catalyst'

INDIANAPOLIS — The scenes 48 hours and 1,849 miles apart were stark. In the first, a morose Caitlin Clark covered her face with a towel draped over her head, her words sharp and direct in attacking a performance her head coach said humbled them . Two days later, Clark beams amid the bright Gainbridge Fieldhouse lights once more, interjecting when someone mentions her fiery competitiveness.

"You think?" she laughs, eyes alight, praise and talking points ready after a 99-89 win over the Las Vegas Aces in Game 2 of the WNBA playoffs first round on Tuesday night.

Clark will not say how ticked off she was by a Game 1 blowout that put the backs of the championship-aspiring Indiana Fever to the wall. What she will do is point out that she hit three shots in a row after the officiating crew called her for a technical foul less than two minutes into the second quarter.

On a night she said the referees struggled — a claim neither side of the court disagreed with — she said she respected the referees for calling it.

Yes, she said, she definitely deserved it. No, she answers, she didn't do it on purpose. No doubt, though, that it further lit a necessary fire.

"We didn't have the mentality [in Game 1] of coming in, kind of puffing our chests a little bit, and I think tonight we really had that," Clark said after sticking hers out with 27 points, 15 assists and 7 rebounds.

The MVP candidate credited Myisha Hines-Allen for the pregame prompting. In the later minutes of the first quarter, Hines-Allen dusted up with Aces center and Game 1 superstar A'ja Wilson, to which Sophie Cunningham waved her hands up to hear from a raucous home crowd, and Clark slapped her singular championship-winning vet's hands.

"That's what we talked about as a team is like, don't be soft," Clark said. "We kind of beat ourselves in that way."

A minute later, Clark reached in on Wilson and ripped the ball to force a jump ball. With every centimeter of movement, the series wrested from the grasp of Wilson to that of Clark. Now it goes back to Las Vegas tied 1-1, and everyone's season is on the line.

"It's about getting hit, but understanding like, listen, we gotta get back up," Aliyah Boston told Yahoo Sports. "You cannot just lay there."

They called it a bounce-back. The intentionality was as clear as the mood shift. In the locker room, head coach Stephanie White drew up the first play to key open Clark on the perimeter. White told everyone she was going to make it.

"I was just trying not to let everybody down because we were all visualizing that I was going to make it, so I needed to get the night started off right," Clark said.

It officially clocked in at 29 feet, a mere 15 seconds into the contest. An early trademark 3 portends a good night for Clark, and Game 2 didn't disappoint. She drew contact for another three points at the free-throw line, thought an ensuing 27-footer would fall ("it just rolled out," she noted), and used the attention to feed Makayla Timpson and Boston on cuts inside an open paint.

Boston finished through contact around Wilson, nearly pristine in her attack and movements, for 22 points on 15 attempts. Kelsey Mitchell did her work as usual, scoring 26 with a sharp 3 of 4 line from the perimeter. Everyone who played scored. They shot a combined 52.1%.

"We just had a presence about us right from the start of the game," Clark said.

Though the Fever looked to be back in business, the deficit grew to eight by the first quarter's end. Jewell Loyd 's 3-pointer to open the second frame sent it to 11.

The Aces, who have only lost a series to the New York Liberty in the playoffs over the last four years, ran over the Fever in Game 1 with a proper sense of understood urgency and desperation. They knew what to expect, knew how to handle it, and operated accordingly.

White described her team as young in that area before the series began, and they swiftly proved the point. An unraveling began in the second quarter the first time around. When the initial thread began to come apart this time, they didn't let it snowball.

Composure, Boston said, was paramount. Except, well, you know.

"She's just a passionate player," Boston said, laughing at hearing that White and the coaching staff's focus was keeping Clark calm following the technical.

The whistle of Clark's first postseason tech blew in a nine-point deficit. She knows how many consecutive baskets she hit afterward: three. Not including a missed 3-pointer. Also not included: a feed to Boston in the paint, where they tore through the Aces in the first half to a tune of 30-16.

Another 3 drew the Fever within a possession, eliciting a roar from the crowd and a timeout by the Aces. They fell behind by six when Mitchell, the league's second-highest scorer, took a turn. Her running alley-oop off an Aces turnover and Clark assist gave the Fever a lead.

Clark became the first player in postseason history with at least 10 points and 10 assists in a half, setting the mark for most assists with 11. She had 14 points when the Fever led 48-43 at the half. Combined with Mitchell's 12 and Boston's eight, their big three contributed 70% of the scoring. The Aces' trio of A'ja Wilson (10 points), Chelsea Gray (10) and Jackie Young (7) had 27 of 43 in the first half.

"I mean, a double-double in the first half? Pretty incredible," White said. "The way that she moved the ball and attacked from multiple positions. You always expect her to be able to make shots and to facilitate, but I thought how she managed the game was really good and her defensive energy, I thought, was terrific."

The Fever leveled up the Aces in the physicality department, suffocating Wilson into attempting zero field goals in the third quarter. She finished with 22 points, largely rendered ineffective. Jackie Young brought the Aces back into it with a 31-point performance that wasn't enough to make up for 10 points by Gray, and single digits elsewhere.

Clark, meanwhile, shone — though the drawback of such fiery, un-soft approach did rear its head. She fouled out with 2:45 to go when she stepped into the block, attempting to stop a solo Wilson from an easy bucket.

The Fever challenged to no avail. A nervousness settled around the crowd, unsure if losing their attack-mode superstar would unspool a 92-83 lead. Mitchell lay in her trademark finger-roll, Boston drove in. Lexie Hull rebounded two key Aces misses, and Cunningham hit two free throws.

Clark said she intends to "keep my head a little bit more" in the next game, aware that one point could be the difference. The Fever need her on the floor, and at her best.

"She was the catalyst for us here tonight," White said. "And I think she's going to just take it to another level when we go to Game 3."

The fire has to travel. Or else the scene reverses itself again.