INDIANAPOLIS – Gainbridge Fieldhouse roared with postseason intensity as Lexie Hull waved her outstretched arms to the ceiling and challenged another sellout crowd to somehow get even louder.
Hull was celebrating back-to-back 3-pointers that gave the Indiana Fever a 12-point lead with 4:09 to play in what became the team’s most impressive victory of an increasingly memorable 25th anniversary season.
The 92-75 decision against the Seattle Storm was all the more special for Hull because of who was in attendance. Her grandmother came all the way from Spokane, Washington, and her sister made the trip from Austin, Texas.
They saw the 6-foot-1 guard score a career-high 22 points on 8-for-10 shooting that included a career-best six 3-pointers in seven attempts.
Even with her family members seated courtside, however, Hull’s biggest fan might have been sitting next to her on the podium in the postgame interview room.
“My (X, formerly Twitter) account will solely be about Lexie, if you want to follow,” Fever rookie Caitlin Clark said. “I’m gonna change the bio, too, to Lexie Hull fan page.”
Hull’s breakout performance was far from the only reason for the home fans to celebrate Sunday afternoon.
Clark broke two more records for first-year players, guard Kelsey Mitchell continued her torrid scoring streak and center Aliyah Boston quietly did the dirty work to help the Fever (13-15) win for the eighth time in their last nine home games.
This was the kind of game Indiana couldn’t win early in the season.
Seattle (17-10) controlled the tempo throughout a brutal opening 20 minutes, cutting the court in half and limiting the Fever’s lethal transition game.
But, with some big buckets from Hull and Mitchell and a blue-collar effort from Boston in the paint, Indiana emerged with a 35-34 advantage at the halftime buzzer.
“It was a slugfest early, just felt like everything was just in the mud,” Indiana head coach Christie Sides said. “But, at halftime, we just kept talking about we had great shots. We got good looks. We were getting stops. You hold Seattle to whatever they had at halftime, you feel good about it, We just had to put the ball in the hoop.”
That began happening with more regularity in the third quarter, when the Fever began to push the tempo a bit and briefly pushed their lead to seven points.
But the Storm clawed back within 59-58 as the game moved into the final period.
What followed was perhaps the best 10 minutes of basketball Indiana has played this season.
The Fever made 10 of their first 11 shots in the fourth quarter, finished 11-for-14 overall and went 6-for-6 from 3-point range while outscoring Seattle 33-17.
Hull started the game-defining burst with a 3-pointer off an assist from Clark to put Indiana in front 65-60.
After Jewell Loyd answered with a basket in the paint, Hull again hit from long distance off a Boston assist.
Loyd followed with a pair of free throws before a floater by Clark inched Indiana back up to a 70-64 advantage.
After Loyd made another free throw, Mitchell drained a 3-pointer and Boston scored on a 12-foot jumper to give the Fever a double-digit lead at 75-65 with 5:51 remaining.
Former Notre Dame star Skylar Diggins-Smith went on a personal 4-0 run out of the timeout for Seattle, but Hull answered with back-to-back 3-pointers to make it 81-69 send the crowd of 17,274 into hysterics.
“We felt like we were getting good looks and good shots (in the first half),” Clark said. “We felt like we could have just played with a little bit of a faster tempo, like we’re really good in transition. But even in the half-court, we were just kind of moving a step slow, like we wanted a little more energy on the ball.
“And I think once we got that in the second half, their (defensive) rotations once they got tired just weren’t as good. And then we were able to get not as many contested shots, and we were able to knock them down. And I don’t know what we shot there in the fourth quarter, but it felt like we made just about every shot.”
Clark finished with 23 points, nine assists, five rebounds, two blocks and one steal. She set the WNBA rookie record for assists in a season in the first half with a feed to Hull for a layup and set a franchise record for 3-pointers made by a rookie with a 27-foot pull-up jumper in the third quarter.
She finished the game with 232 career assists, surpassing Ticha Penicheiro’s previous league record of 225 for a rookie, and 78 3-pointers, overtaking Tamika Catchings’ rookie team record of 75.
“Obviously, Ticha is somebody that’s been very supportive of myself even since I was in college,” Clark said of setting the assists mark. “And if you watch her highlights, she was definitely a better passer than me. She had way more flair to her game and the way she passed the ball.
“Like she would spin around and make these crazy passes. I kind of just run in transition and chuck it up there and hope for the best.”
Mitchell finished with a game-high 27 points, breaking the 20-point barrier for the fourth time in the last five games. The pending free agent is averaging 23.4 points during that stretch, and Indiana is 4-1 with wins in each of Mitchell’s 20-point efforts.
Boston’s night was somewhat quieter by comparison to her teammates, but she finished one point and two assists shy of a triple-double with nine points, 15 rebounds and eight assists.
“I mean, AB is gonna give you whatever you need,” Sides said. “When Caitlin’s being trapped, when she sets that screen, she’s putting herself in the right place so Caitlin can give her the ball, right? Like she’s in the position, and now she is seeing ahead of her on who to make the next pass to because everyone is now flooding the lane trying to make sure AB is either gonna drive or she’s gonna kick to our shooters.”
Loyd led Seattle with 26 points, but the Storm shot just 38.9% from the field and only Diggins-Smith (15) and Nneka Ogwumike (14) joined her in double-figure scoring.
It was the first win in four tries for the Fever against Seattle this season but the second win this weekend against a likely playoff team, following a 98-89 decision Friday against the Phoenix Mercury.
“We’re hard to guard when everyone’s making their shots,” Hull said. “So it’s just exciting to kind of get into a rhythm as a group. And, yeah, we’re excited to take each game as it comes but keep moving forward and keep building on this one.”
