A lot of the Indiana Fever’s success against the Las Vegas Aces was hinged on Aliyah Boston. Her matchup against A’ja Wilson over a five-game semifinal series is probably the toughest she has had. It was the master meeting the apprentice. So far, the apprentice has troubled the 2025 MVP enough to take this series to Game 5. “Honestly, just trying to kind of be annoying a little bit,” Boston said during Game 1, where she held Wilson to just a 16.7% effective field goal rate. But as the series has evolved, the contest has equalised, but Boston has been following Wilson like a hawk.
The Fever forward explained her approach towards guarding Wilson on the latest episode of her podcast “The Post Moves” with Candace Parker. “I mean, just be there like every step she takes, like I take the same step and just kind of just being in her presence, contesting every shot, and then just pushing the pace and going back at her in that way. I feel like that’s sometimes, you know, like you got to get a stop, but then at the other end, we’ve got a guard, too.” She said.
In the four games, Wilson has averaged an impressive 21.3 points per game, but she did have some of her worst playoff games in this series. In Game 1, she went 6-22 from the field (27.3%), while in Game 3, it was marginally better at 6-20 (30%). You can’t help it with the two games she went off. Someone like Wilson will eventually get her shots off. To Boston’s strategy, Wilson has averaged 33.3% from the non-restricted area in the paint as opposed to 46.4% in the regular season.
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Her restricted area accuracy has also dropped by 14% from the regular season. The drop has been because Boston is not giving Wilson any open looks, making every shot take more out of Wilson. “I saw you just back up and double bury and put your elbows up and show your numbers like it was textbook, what they teach you how to post up and duck in the paint,” Parker explained. Wilson can make the more difficult contested shots, but it will take more out of her, giving Boston some respite on the other end, like in Game 4.
Boston had Wilson on skates with turnaround shots and fake outs, along with the bully ball she usually uses. She joined Tamika Catchings as the only players in the Fever franchise history to have a 20-point, 10-rebound, five-assist performance in the playoffs, and fell one rebound shy of becoming the fourth player in WNBA history with a 20/15/5 effort in the postseason. A’ja Wilson has had her stretches of dominance over Boston, but with Boston stepping in as the underdog, the spotlight and credit belong to the third-year forward. While she leads the Indiana Fever, Boston will simultaneously pass her knowledge to the next generation of players.
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Aliyah Boston Is the Queen Of All Trades
Beyond playing basketball, what does Aliyah Boston like? Of course, it’s talking about basketball. Aliyah Boston has already started a podcast named Post Moves with legend Candace Parker, which has 17,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now, Boston is reportedly joining as an analyst in College Basketball.
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“The 23-year-old WNBA star is finalizing a deal to return to NBC Sports and Peacock this fall, Front Office Sports has learned. The Fever forward would serve as a studio analyst and possible game analyst for Big Ten college basketball coverage, sources say.” Wrote Michael McCarthy.
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