^{September 22, 2025 | Edition #141}

👋 Hey, Hoophead!

The one person who had the best weekend? A’ja Wilson. And probably the worst? Also…A’ja Wilson. Sunday took her from one of the biggest moments of her career straight into one of her career lows. And the culprit was none other than the unstoppable Indiana Fever. At this point, it feels like Indy has made it their full-time job to silence both doubters and road crowds.

On a different court, though, things went exactly as you’d expect. Minnesota home dominance was on full display - again!

Indiana Did It Again!

As we said, don’t count the Fever out just yet!

And wow, did they prove that in Game 1 of the semis. The difference this time was a whole lot of Kelsey Mitchell magic… and A’ja Wilson having one of those super rare off nights.

On the same day she celebrated being named MVP, Wilson managed just 16 points on 6-of-22 shooting (the most missed FGA of her playoff career!!) as the Indiana Fever stunned the Aces 89-73. Her fellow South Carolina alumna, Aliyah Boston, guarded her on 35 possessions and held her to a chilly 27.3% FG.

But Indy didn’t win just because Wilson struggled. They won because their own MVP-in-spirit, Kelsey Mitchell, went off for 34 points. Becky Hammon didn’t sugarcoat her post-game words either. She was brutally honest about how Mitchell gave them a hard time, and probably subtly hinted at how her team is A'ja-dependent. Hear straight from her!

The Aces did briefly rally, cutting a double-digit deficit to three late in the third quarter. But Indy closed the frame on an 11-0 run, pushing the lead back to 14 and never looking back. Another factor has to be how Wilson didn’t get much support around her. The Aces shot just 40% from the field, 29.4% from three, had only 12 assists, and turned the ball over 12 times.

Meanwhile, the Fever saw Odyssey Sims chipping in 17 points, Natasha Howard recording a double-double (12 pts, 11 reb), and the team as a whole shot a blistering 34-of-68 (50%) from the field.

And just like that, the Fever’s fairytale continues. Still, the series is only getting started, and we can expect Vegas to come back even hungrier on Tuesday.

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Comeback? That’s a Minnesota Special

Who knew that the most viral clip from a high-stakes semifinal game would be Alyssa Thomas making faces at an energy gel? Well, people, let’s move past that because Minnesota–Phoenix was way more than a meme!

For starters, it was the same story for the Lynx: another comeback, another win.

Minnesota stormed back from a rough first half to take Game 1, 82-69. After giving up 47 points early, the team huddled at halftime to figure things out. “It was collaborative,” Cheryl Reeve explained. Translation….play like the top team you are.

But before the comeback really got rolling, AT caught ‘Studbud’ Natisha Hiedeman with a hard elbow that sent her to the floor. Here’s the play Thomas got a tech for!

From there, the Lynx completely flipped the game. Or should we say that Courtney Williams did? She scored 12 of her 23 points after halftime and picked up a career-high five steals, injecting life into Minnesota.

Phoenix, of course, had it in the first half. But the second-half stats tell the whole story. The Mercury scored 52 points in the paint through three quarters…and just two in the fourth. That’s Minnesota’s defense in a nutshell!

Kayla McBride added 21, Napheesa Collier chipped in 18, but it was Williams and McBride hitting big shots late that kept Phoenix at bay despite them making a push. For one play, Williams went coast-to-coast for a bucket and a foul that brought the Lynx back in the game. As the commentators put it, she was dancing up the floor. You won’t want to miss this!

With just under four minutes left, McBride buried a dagger three to push the Lynx lead to 73-67. Minnesota never looked back. Phoenix’s big three poured in 50 combined. Because Kahleah Copper and Satou Sabally just can’t….show up on the same night (22 for Copper, 10 for Sabally)!

Snub or Fair? Was Napheesa Collier Denied MVP Because of Unrivaled?

One of A'Kind- A’ja Wilson

“I’m sorry that you all were born at the same time as this player!”

With pride in her eyes, Becky Hammon delivered the truth. If we needed one more reminder, this was it: when all is said and done, A’ja Wilson will be the greatest to ever do this.

4th MVPs in 8 seasons! 3 DPOYs! 2 Championships!

All at the age of 29, by the way!

Wilson has officially cemented herself in WNBA history as the first four-time MVP, breaking the four-way tie with three-time winners Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, and Lauren Jackson. And the moment was….everything. Picture Wilson crying, smiling, as her “someone special” hands her the trophy, with teammates in the background holding back tears, and her father wearing her iconic pink wig. You have to watch this to feel it all!

This honor came on the back of her putting up 23.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.3 blocks, and 1.6 steals across 40 games. That’s leading the league in points per game for the second straight season and blocks for the fifth time.

But stats only tell part of the story….

Most importantly, Wilson took the Aces from an 11-11 mid-season record to a 19-3 finish. Hence, while last season’s unanimous MVP was impressive, this one might feel even sweeter for Wilson herself. “My name wasn’t even in the [early] conversations.”

“It’s crazy,” she says. And you know what’s crazier? The “close race” wasn’t all that close, apparently. Wilson racked up 51 of 72 first-place votes. Only three players earned first-place nods, and the Indiana duo cracked the top 6! Here are the full voting results!

So, is Wilson the GOAT? That’s in the eye of the beholder. But if records, hardware, dominance, and impact are the criteria, she is pretty much the definition.

Was That a Foul?

Aliyah Boston was called for a Charge on one play on Sunday. For the uninitiated, a Charge is an offensive foul that occurs when an offensive player charges into a defender. For the call to be a Charge and not a Block, the defender must be in a legal guarding position when the contact occurs, and she should not be standing in the restricted area. Check out the moment below.

So it is quite clearly a Charge, and the officials got it right (for once). But here, if you look, Boston’s elbow was very high, which can be counted as excessive contact. If the officials saw it that way, they could have called a Flagrant 1 on Boston. It wasn’t called, though. So,

1. Axed! Locker Room Unrest Ends Noelle Quinn’s Seattle Storm Run - Full Story

2. Indiana Exposes the Aces’ Fatal Flaw; Even Becky Hammon Concedes - Full Story

3. Caitlin Clark’s Reaction Says It All as Kelsey Mitchell Rewrites History - Full Story

4. ‘Petition to Ban This!’ Reeve Calls Out Alyssa Thomas’ ‘Tush Push’ Defense - Full Story

5. ABC Commentators Rip A’ja Wilson Over Her Vanishing Act - Full Story

That’s it for today, folks! We’ll look to knock on your inbox soon with more interesting stories!

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