Fever vs Lynx: Minnesota wins 86-66, Caitlin Clark scores 2, and Indiana opens the playoffs at Las Vegas

The Minnesota Lynx beat the Indiana Fever 86-66 at Target Center on Thursday night in the last game of the WNBA regular season. Minnesota finished 33-11 as the league's No. 1 seed. Indiana finished 28-16 and drops to the No. 6 seed, which means the Fever open the playoffs on the road against the No. 3 Las Vegas Aces on Sunday, ESPN reported.

The Lynx host the New York Liberty in their first-round series, a rematch of the 2024 WNBA Finals.

How the game went

It was over early. Minnesota scored 32 points in the first quarter and 30 in the second to lead 62-32 at halftime, according to the CBS Sports box score. ESPN reported the Lynx jumped out to a 25-4 lead and were up by as many as 36 in the third quarter before Fever coach Stephanie White pulled her starters. Indiana won the fourth quarter 25-10 after the game was decided.

• Caitlin Clark scored a career-low 2 points on 1-for-12 shooting.
• Kelsey Mitchell had 10 points on 3-for-12, ending her league-record streak of 27 straight games with at least 20 points.
• Kayla McBride led Minnesota with 22 points on six 3-pointers. Natasha Howard added 21.

The result flipped Tuesday's game in Indianapolis, where the Fever led the Lynx by 23 at halftime and Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve benched her starters. McBride was held scoreless in that one.

The injuries matter more than the score

Two Fever players left Thursday's game. Aliyah Boston, a four-time All-Star, did not play the second half. White said Boston had a flare-up in her knee and was held out as a precaution. Reserve guard Tyasha Harris was carried off with a left ankle injury, and White had no update on her status after the game. With a Sunday playoff opener in Las Vegas, Boston's availability is the number to watch this weekend.

Indiana went 2-1 against the Aces this season. It lost two of its last three games after winning eight of 10, and ESPN noted the Fever have the league's top offense but rank 11th in points allowed. Last season, Las Vegas eliminated Indiana in a Game 5 on the road in the semifinals.

What the betting market says, in plain percentages

A 20-point blowout two nights after a 23-point halftime deficit the other way says more about a meaningless finale than about the playoffs. The prices sportsbooks posted afterward, per ESPN's odds report using DraftKings lines, convert to these implied chances (our arithmetic, before removing the bookmaker's margin):

The two sides of the Aces-Fever series add up to 104.1%. That extra 4.1 points is the sportsbook's built-in margin, so the market's fair view of Indiana's first-round chances is a bit under 39%.

The part most fans miss: even at those long odds, the Fever are the team sportsbooks fear most. ESPN reported Indiana accounts for about 25% of the title-futures money wagered at DraftKings, and a Caesars trader called the Fever the books' worst-case outcome "as long as Caitlin Clark is there." BetMGM said Indiana is its most-bet team for the title by both number of bets and dollars. A Lynx or Aces championship is a good result for the books; a Fever run is the one that costs them.

Clark's own read after the loss was simple: "At this point, everybody's record is 0-0," she told reporters.

Sources: ESPN, ESPN Bet (DraftKings, Caesars Sportsbook and BetMGM figures), CBS Sports. Implied percentages are calculated by The Company Chronicle from the published lines. This is information, not betting advice.