DALLAS — By Thursday afternoon, the price of a ticket at the American Airlines Center was hovering around $80. The price of watching the fourth WNBA matchup between Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark from the upper deck — less than a week later a sparkling third date in Indianapolis — was not overly exaggerated.
This time the play had different stars and a different score. The Dallas Wings picked up perhaps their most needed win of the season with a 91-85 win over the Indiana Fever, finally finding their balance after losing to Azzi Fudd of season-ending knee surgery and slipped to eighth place in the WNBA standings. It also ended the Fever’s five-game winning streak and prevented them from clinching a playoff spot at the first attempt.
“It was definitely big,” Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale said after he poured in 32 points. “The other team just caught us, and we were like, we didn’t want to be the team that teams were fighting on. We wanted to take it personally.”
Are those in the 20,297 looking for another Bueckers-Clark duel after each scoring 29 points in last Friday’s meeting?
Instead, Ogunbowale exploded and Jessica Shepard added a career-high 26 for Dallas in her return to the lineupwhile Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell carried a heavy load with 37 points – although she made history with it. Bueckers and Clark, meanwhile, missed a combined 22 of 31 shots from the field.
Clark gets the best of Bueckers one-on-one as Fever top Wings
Still, even without the two playing stunning basketball, the Wings and Fever seem to be becoming a must-attend rivalry. Among the celebrities Thursday night: Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg and NBA Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady. Even WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert made an appearance, talking to the Cubans between the third and fourth quarters.
As for Mitchell’s defining moment: With a layup late in the first half, the All-Star guard broke the WNBA record for consecutive 20-point games, hitting the mark for the 21st straight.
Azzi’s absence
Toward the end of Thursday morning’s shootaround, Alysha Clark finished her routine from beyond the 3-point arc in her usual fashion: ahead of a group of three teammates in an informal race to the end. “It’s been clean all season, don’t get it twisted,” the veteran Wings guard said.
Something was very different though. Clark’s running mate is usually Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick in 2026. But Fudd will not participate in pregame contests for the foreseeable future after the Wings announced he will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery and miss the rest of the season. It was another blow to a team that might have the worst injury luck in recent WNBA history.
The Wings, losers of 8 of 11 games heading into Thursday, were about as bent as a team can be before snapping completely.
“Over the past few years in Dallas,” guard Maddy Siegrist said of the injury setbacks, “we’ve had our fair share.”
First it was Alanna Smith, a key free agent player, who suffered a concussion. Then it was All-Star forward Shepard, who turned her ankle and missed several games. Now it’s Fudd, who has started every game she’s appeared in since May 28; whose 39.7 percent 3-point shooting ranks 15th in the league; and who performed defensive duties at the highest threat of the opponent’s rear.
What’s behind the WNBA’s more aggressive play?
“The biggest thing Azzi has done, aside from being defensive, is spreading the floor,” Wings coach Jose Fernandez said. “We need someone who can space the floor, defend and shoot.
“It’s hard to replace what she’s done, especially as a rookie.”
The Wings still have a 99 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to PlayoffStatus.com. And recently injured guard Asiaha James (shin) will be evaluated in a week with a chance to return before the FIBA World Cup break.
But the juggling act continues. Each game of Fudd’s recent absence has featured a new starter, and on Thursday, the Wings went with a super-sized frontcourt lineup of Smith, Shepard and Awak Kuier (which helped the Wings put up 46 points in the paint, 20 points ahead of the Fever).
That reflects the urgency to build momentum before the Wings reach the postseason, lest they limp along and slip away quickly.
“For us, right now, it’s winning games because our playoff spot is not sealed,” Clark said. “We don’t want to leave it to chance and leave it up to what other teams are doing. That’s not a position you want to be in, and we’ve worked too hard this whole season to put ourselves in a position to be successful.”
Mitchell stays hot – in a good way
The pregame health report on Mitchell, the WNBA’s second-leading scorer, was both vague and completely accurate.
“She’s Kelsey,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “Until I hear otherwise, I think he’s feeling pretty good.”
An overly stuffy arena in Toronto on Tuesday caused Mitchell to feel overheated and sit the entire fourth quarter out of an abundance of caution. She was previously diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a condition that can be caused by overexertion, after collapsing from lower-body spasms and temporary leg paralysis during the 2025 playoff series against the Las Vegas Aces.
But Mitchell participated in the shootaround and warmups with a full squad on Thursday, started as usual and then set a WNBA record. With four seconds left in the first half, Mitchell caught a Clark pass for a layup and finished in traffic for her 20th and 21st points of the night. In addition, Mitchell had her 21st straight game with 20 or more points, breaking the record held by Las Vegas Aces star A’J Wilson. As it happens, she also broke her own Fever record for points scored in a season, hitting 912 with seven games remaining.
“First of all, I just want to give kudos to my team for making me look good,” Mitchell said. “But I don’t really take stats that seriously, so a lot of things are secondary to me. I want to get ‘depth’ and we didn’t get that. It’s important to keep the focus on the right thing, keep the main thing the main thing.”
The fever is still below the playoff bar – for now
With a win, the Fever would set a franchise record for wins for the second straight season and clinch a spot in the postseason. Of course, it will happen at some point, maybe as early as Friday night Toronto Tempo should beat the Portland Fire. That score would officially put Indiana in the mix for a championship chase.
But getting in isn’t the point anyway. Not anymore. “This is the expectation to be in these situations,” White said before the game. And the fact that the Fever couldn’t match the Wings’ desperation served as another lesson in curbing complacency.
“We talked about it in the locker room at halftime and we talked about it again at the end of the game — they’re playing to make the playoffs,” Fever wing Lexie Hull said. “They came in with a lot of energy, a lot of grit. And I think at the end of the day, they just wanted more. They were more desperate to win. So it took more of that for us. We should have been the team that wanted it more.”
