With one half of the WNBA Finals locked up, the No. 2 Las Vegas Aces will host the No. 6 Indiana Fever in a winner-take-all Game 5 semifinals battle on Tuesday night, as each team hopes to join the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury in the league's 2025 championship series.
"Our players understand what we have to do," said Indiana head coach Stephanie White. "We have to leave it all out on the floor."
"Honestly, you just do your work," Aces star A'ja Wilson said prior to Tuesday's decider. "You gotta do your work early and make it different."
Up and down performances on both sides led to the win-or-go-home Game 5, with Indiana opening the series by stealing a road victory before Las Vegas roared back with double-digit wins in Games 2 and 3.
However, the injury-riddled Fever don't know when to quit, scraping together a Game 4 victory on Sunday behind stellar play from guard Kelsey Mitchell plus 34 trips to the free-throw line — more than three times the Aces' tally.
"We didn't get a lot of stops. They shot a lot of free throws. We didn't," Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon said after Sunday's loss. "That all affects the flow of the game, but it was us on the defensive end."
How to watch Indiana vs. Las Vegas in Game 5 of the semifinals
The No. 2 Aces and No. 6 Fever will close out the 2025 WNBA semifinals with a high-stakes Game 5 clash in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The action tips off at 9:30 PM ET, with live coverage airing on ESPN2.
The No. 4 Phoenix Mercury are headed to their first WNBA Finals since 2021, clinching their spot in the 2025 season finale after sweeping a two-game semifinals homestand against the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx with Sunday's 86-81 Game 4 win.
The Mercury are now the first team in WNBA Playoffs history to battle back from multiple 14-point deficits in a single series, with Phoenix star forward Alyssa Thomas putting up a team-leading 23 points to complete Sunday's comeback win.
"No one has had expectations for us except ourselves," Phoenix head coach Nate Tibbetts said following Game 4. "The pride and the togetherness for such a new group, it's pretty impressive."
After ceding a 20-point lead in Game 2, the Lynx's championship prospects took an even bigger hit on Friday, as leading scorer Napheesa Collier exited Game 3 with a serious ankle injury that left her sidelined for Sunday's big Game 4.
"You just want it for the people around you," said Minnesota guard Kayla McBride, who posted a game-leading 31 points in Sunday's loss. "You want it for the people who grind with you every single day, good days, bad days, bus rides, locker room."
"In pro sports, it doesn't get any better than what we have in our locker room," McBride continued. "I would feel [this emotion] one hundred times over to be with the people that I've been with."
While Minnesota's season is officially over, No. 4 Phoenix will now await the winner of Tuesday's semifinal Game 5 between the No. 6 Indiana Fever and No. 2 Las Vegas Aces, with the best-of-seven 2025 WNBA Finals set to tip off on Friday.
As the regular season winds down, the WNBA announced this year's postseason schedule on Wednesday, with the 2025 Playoffs officially tipping off on September 14th.
The latest possible finish for the 2025 WNBA Finals is October 17th, with three rounds of play standing between the eight-team postseason field and this year's championship trophy.
Notably, the WNBA is instituting two main changes to its previous Playoffs format in the 2025 schedule.
The postseason's first round — a best-of-three series — will shift from the WNBA's home-home-away format, in which the higher seeds could sweep at home, to a one-one-one structure.
With this change, the league is guaranteeing that every playoff team will host at least one home game.
Additionally, while the best-of-five semifinals will remain the same with its two-two-one hosting structure, the 2025 WNBA Finals will be the first to expand to a best-of-seven series, feeding fans' growing appetite for additional postseason clashes and offering upwards of four title-deciding matchups.
This new Finals format will see the higher seed host Games 1, 2, 5, and 7, giving each team a possible two opportunities to clinch the 2025 championship in front of a home crowd.
All games in the 2025 WNBA Playoffs will air on ESPN platforms, with matchups across ESPN2, ESPN, and ABC.
Currently, the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx are the only team to clinch their 2025 postseason berth.
On the other hand, the No. 11 Dallas Wings, No. 12 Chicago Sky, and No. 13 Connecticut Sun were all recently eliminated from playoff contention.