The Indiana Fever trailed by 27 points midway through the third quarter on the road against the Connecticut Sun on June 10 when coach Christie Sides took four of the team’s starters out of the game for good. The one starter who remained in the contest was Aliyah Boston, the 2023 first-overall pick and Rookie of the Year.

Boston’s sophomore campaign didn’t have an ideal beginning. After an All-Star season that saw Boston average 14.5 points per game while having the WNBA’s third-best field goal percentage (57.8%), Boston averaged only 10.3 ppg on 41.7% shooting in the first 12 games in 2024.

So, with Boston scoring only four points in the first half of a game that was already in hand, the Fever kept Boston out there and played through the center in the low post more than they had all year. The results were promising.

Boston scored 10 points with two assists in the second half. By the time she exited the game late in the fourth quarter, the Sun’s lead was down to 17, although the scoreboard was inconsequential. That 11-minute stretch amid the blowout began a shift for Boston’s season.

“I just needed her to get some confidence,” Sides said on June 13. “I left her in, I needed her to get confidence because that’s what she was missing.”

While Boston had a similar amount of scoring attempts to begin this season as she did last year, her usage was nowhere near the same. With Caitlin Clark joining the team and running the show at point guard, the urgency to get Boston the ball wavered. Boston got shots, but they came more from pick-and-rolls than last year. When Boston did get post touches early in the year, they often came with the shot clock dwindling, forcing rushed shots.

But for the first time in that blowout loss, the team got Boston the ball on the blocks early in the shot clock, and the other four players on the floor spaced and cut well around her. Those possessions continued when the other starters played with Boston again, and she started to look like herself.

When Boston catches the ball early in possessions and assesses the entire defense, her effectiveness skyrockets. In Indiana’s first game after losing to Connecticut, Boston scored a career-high 27 points against the Atlanta Dream. She’s averaged 18.3 ppg on 62.7% shooting in the past six games.

Boston earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the week of June 10-16, and her improved play strengthened the Fever’s offense. Per WNBA.com, the Fever had a 95.9 offensive rating in their first 13 games, which was 10th of the 12 WNBA teams. In the past five games — where Boston has averaged 19.2 ppg as the team was 4-1 — the Fever had a 112.0 offensive rating, which is second in the league behind the New York Liberty, who have had the league’s best offense all year.

Part of why Indiana can play through Boston in the post is her skilled passing. Boston is not a black hole in the post, which allows both her and her teammates to flourish when she gets the ball down low. She averages 2.7 assists per game, which is the third-most of any WNBA center this season. Over the past six games, Boston averaged 3.3 apg. Between Boston’s passing and the gravity and attention she commands, the Fever generate great looks when she’s planted by the basket.

The partnership between Boston and Clark has also developed in the past few weeks. Early in the year, the two No. 1 picks didn’t lead to quality offense, largely because neither had played with a player like the other.

While Clark played with All-Big Ten centers Monika Czinano and Hannah Stuelke at Iowa, those players weren’t dictating offense as Boston does. Iowa’s centers often caught entry passes and went up for shots soon after. Before Boston’s South Carolina squad played Iowa in the 2023 Final Four, Boston actually said it was “pretty cool” how Czinano “doesn’t dribble.”

For Boston, she had never played with a pull-up shooter of Clark’s magnitude. South Carolina didn’t utilize an offense based on frequent pick-and-rolls. When the Gamecocks did run pick-and-rolls, stopping Boston’s roll was much more important than being in the airspace of South Carolina’s ball-handlers, because they weren’t the shooting threats Clark is. Boston played with Kelsey Mitchell — who has hit 40% of her 3s on high volume over the past three seasons — as a rookie, but Mitchell gets open off the ball and in isolation more than she does through ball screens.

Watch these possessions from the Fever’s first game against Connecticut on May 14. When the Fever set up the Clark-Boston pick-and-roll, Connecticut aggressively hedged or trapped Clark. Ideally, Boston should roll to the foul-line area, catch a pass and decide what to do from there. Instead, Boston frequently rolled deep into the paint, because that’s what she was used to.

The lack of synergy led to Clark committing 10 turnovers and the Fever having 25 as a team in their 92-71 loss that night. Before the Fever played the Sun again on May 20, Clark said, “Our posts don’t need to roll away as far. So if we can hit the post quickly after the trap comes, you’re basically playing with an advantage there. You got two of the defenders behind you and it’s basically 4-on-3 from there.”

As of late, Boston has operated much better in the short roll. She’s no longer rolling past the WNBA logo in the paint. When Boston gets the ball in that high-post area, she uses her vision to read defenses and decide whether to attack or find an open teammate. She's more equipped to lead the Fever's 4-on-3 attacks than she was to start the year.

"I have definitely grown in this area by just being able to read the defenses quicker, which is better for the offense," Boston told IndyStar on Wednesday. "I'm able to find the open player and get the ball to them, which allows us to keep the defense moving and us getting the best shot in that moment. Caitlin draws a lot of attention and she does a great job getting the ball out of those traps."

Between Boston and Clark’s increased chemistry and better spacing by the other three players on the floor, the Fever have become more surgical in these pick-and-roll opportunities. As Boston becomes more comfortable and consistent as a mid-range shooter, this action will become even more lethal for Indiana. Boston is shooting just 23.1% on mid-range shots this year (per WNBA.com), although she did shoot 45.5% last year.

“Caitlin does a great job of finding me and also understanding when she can get her shot out of the pick-and-roll as well,” Boston said on June 19. “I think that’s something that we’ve just continued to build over games and practices and (we) just continue to get a feel for each other. So I’m super excited (about) where it’s at now.”

Better screens from Boston and power forward NaLyssa Smith have opened up looks for everyone too. While screening actions — both on and off the ball — stalled out early in the year, Indiana’s post players are making solid contact, which makes it tough for defending guards to stay in the play. Sides feels that has made a strong impact after the “drive-by” screens the team set early in the year.

“We weren’t hitting anybody on screens, also we weren’t waiting on screens,” Sides said on June 16. “So just being able to emphasize that at practice, you’ve seen a difference in some of the wide-open looks we’re getting off our screens.”

Aside from the orchestrated pick-and-rolls, the Clark and Boston pairing is also humming more during fastbreaks. Clark is finding Boston in transition and semi-transition for easy buckets. This often comes with Boston trailing Clark and getting to the bucket before defenses set up.

With Clark’s vision, these are easy passes to make. She’s not only delivering the right passes to Boston, but she puts the ball in the right spot to lead Boston to the hoop. Clark averaged 8.2 apg over the past five games, which would lead the WNBA this season.

As Boston has re-emerged, the Fever’s offense has caught steam. Albeit against teams in the WNBA’s bottom half, Boston has helped the team turn the corner. With the Fever — who sit ninth in the WNBA standings — playing four straight games against teams .500 or better, they’ll need to prove that they can sustain this offensive proficiency against worthwhile opponents.

If the Fever continue feeding Boston in the right spots, they should be able to score efficiently against the league’s top teams.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How feeding Aliyah Boston changed Indiana Fever's offense