South Carolina basketball alum Aliyah Boston and her Indiana Fever squad are the hottest team in the WNBA. With an 8-2 record since the return from the Olympic break, the Fever team has been carried by Boston and her teammates Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell, and the terrific trio has been one of the top groups in the entire league during the span.
The Sunday night game between the Indiana Fever and Atlanta Dream almost was a loss for the Fever, but Aliyah Boston took matters into her own hands. Trailing by 2 points with under 20 seconds to go in the game, Boston got her defender off balance with a ball fake and then drove in for a left-handed layup that tied the game and sent things to overtime.
Boston and Caitlin Clark scored or assisted on every bucket in overtime as Indiana pulled off the 104-100 victory. For the game, Boston scored 30 points on a very efficient 11-16 shooting and a perfect 8-8 from the free throw line. The 30 points was a new career high for Boston, and she also secured another double-double by pulling down 13 rebounds, dishing out 5 assists, and adding 1 steal and 1 block.
The big box score effort from Aliyah Boston was just the third time in WNBA history in which a player had at least 30 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists, and a 65% field goal efficiency. She joins Candace Parker and Sabrina Ionescu in achieving those numbers.
Boston, who often plays the center position for the Fever, got a lot of minutes at power forward in this game, allowing her to play a little more freely on offense. Her passing ability has been unlocked a bit over the past couple of weeks, and she would not have been able to be a secondary facilitator (her 5 assists were second on the team) without that freedom.
Fellow Gamecocks Allisha Gray, Laeticia Amihere, and Victaria Saxton were part of the game, as well. Amihere and Saxton did not see the court, and Gray scored 15 points for the Dream in the losing effort.