INDIANAPOLIS — Aliyah Boston made her much-anticipated 2026 Indiana Fever preseason debut on Saturday night against the Nigerian National Team.
Boston didn’t play in the Fever’s first two preseason games as she worked through a return-to-play regimen following a lower leg injury in late February while she was playing in Unrivaled. She practiced as normal throughout training camp, but Fever coach Steph White didn’t want to take any chances with her star center.
On Saturday, she got that tune up before the regular season starts next week.
“I felt great,” Boston said after the victory over the Nigeria National Team. “The energy was high, super excited to play a real game again, so that was great.”
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In that debut, Boston introduced a new wrinkle in the playbook with Caitlin Clark — an inverted pick and roll. As Boston brought the ball up the floor, Clark, playing off the ball, set a screen for her around the 3-point line, freeing up a wide-open lane for the center to drop in a layup.
That play’s success has to come with a grain of salt, obviously, as the Nigerian National Team is not at the same level as the competition the Fever will be seeing night in and night out in the WNBA. But for White and her staff, it’s just the beginning of what Boston and Clark can do together as they continue to expand their games.
And if it can be successful against WNBA competition, it will make defending the Fever that much more difficult.
“AB’s game has expanded,” White said. “I mean, she played point forward for us last year, and when you have two playmakers that are screeners, it makes defenses make a choice. We’ve got to be creative in ways that we can get one another shots and create space. I think that we have an opportunity with those three (Boston, Clark, and Kelsey Mitchell) to do a lot of different things. How quickly that happens? I don’t know. We will see. We’ve got a lot of information to absorb, but being able to see what it looks like was good for us.”
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at chloe.peterson@indystar.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar TV: Fever for in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes coverage and more.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Fever’s Aliyah Boston ‘super excited to play a real game’ after injury layoff
Reporting by Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
