INDIANAPOLIS – All good games on the offensive end start with shutdown defense.
At least, that’s how Natasha Howard sees it.
“Our defense gets our offense going,” Howard said. “That’s how we maintain games like that. We don’t rely on our offense a lot. We rely on our defense. When defense is going, our offense is going. So we limited Vegas to one shot, and that’s how we got open shots for shooters, inside the paint, everything.”
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And that led to a pivotal win for the Indiana Fever, as they left Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Thursday night with an 80-70 victory over the Las Vegas Aces. Indiana (13-12) now holds the tiebreaker over Las Vegas (12-12) if the two finish with the same record at the end of the regular season.
It was also the first time in franchise history the Fever have won back-to-back games over the Aces. A lot of that was thanks to Howard.
Howard, who played 30 minutes Thursday night, finished with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting, along with 13 rebounds (five offensive) for her sixth double-double of the season.
The 2019 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, Howard was brought back to Indiana to be a tone-setter. She did that Thursday. She took advantage of the Aces’ defensive tendencies, powering through contact to draw fouls. She had a team-high seven free-throw attempts, making five of them. Howard also created extra possessions for herself and her teammates, cleaning up the glass with a team-high five offensive rebounds. She even rounded out her performance with a rare 3-point make.
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And, Howard says, it was thanks to her defense — and her teammates.
“I just went out there and just played my game, and also just chirping to my teammates, and my teammates chirping back to me as well,” Howard said.
“You’re welcome,” guard Sophie Cunningham, sitting next to Howard, interjected.
“For me, it was just my defense,” Howard added. “My defense translated into offense.”
That defensive tenacity is something the Fever coaching staff has been prioritizing this season. Indiana was at the bottom of the barrel defensively for the past two years, allowing a second-worst 106.3 points per 100 possessions in 2023 and 107.5 points per possession in 2024.
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This season, under coach Stephanie White, the number has improved to 100.5 points per 100 possessions — seventh in the league.
“We really challenged their pride, their individual defensive pride,” White said. “You gotta guard your yard. You gotta guard your matchup. We gotta guard two-and-two in the pick-and-roll. We gotta do a better job of locking into that consistently. And I felt like individually, for the most part, we held true to that. There were still some breakdowns for various reasons, but I thought we did a much better job, and we got better tonight.”
Now, the Fever will need to do that consistently.
Indiana has shown spurts of being a championship-caliber team, evident in those two wins over Las Vegas, a win over league-leading Minnesota in the Commissioner’s Cup, and a win over the reigning champion New York Liberty.
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But Indiana hasn’t been able to show up on both ends of the floor on a consistent basis this year, dropping winnable games (like giving the now-3-20 Connecticut Sun their first win of the season and suffering a second-half collapse against the Los Angeles Sparks).
The Fever, coaching staff and players alike, know time is running out to have what they consider to be a successful season. And they’ll need to turn those spurts of greatness into a constant to become a dangerous team.
“We have to just understand the urgency and attention to detail that it takes,” White said. “We don’t have the luxury of having breakdowns, of having lapses. We have to understand the sense of urgency that it takes with each possession… We’ve got quality depth, and we’ve got to be able to use it.”
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@gannett.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How Natasha Howard powered Indiana Fever to pivotal win over Aces
