20 minutes. That’s all it took for Aliyah Boston’s night to end against the Washington Mystics. The 24-year-old exited with a leg injury, and soon after, the Indiana Fever delivered an update.

In an X post, the team wrote, "Injury Update: Aliyah Boston (lower leg injury) will not return to tonight's game." This was the 6-foot-5 Center's second disappointment of the week after scoring low and getting fouled out against the Sparks on May 13.

The leg injury happened during the second half of Friday night’s game against the Mystics. Without a formal update by Boston or the team before Sunday's game against the Storm, it’s tough to know how serious the injury is. But the fact that she was ruled out so quickly is definitely concerning.

What stood out about the injury was that it didn’t seem obvious while Aliyah Boston was on the court. It seemed to stem from issues other than contact with another player on court. This could indicate a re-emergence of the lower-leg injury from April, which had caused her to miss the preseason game against the New York Liberty.

Boston went to the locker room during a break in play, and since her exit was quiet, no one noticed anything of concern. For the Fever, it only made things worse, as they went on to lose a close 102-104 game.

It was Boston's 127th consecutive regular-season start of her career, and before being ruled out with the injury, she scored nine points, four rebounds, one assist, and a steal, going 3-of-8 from the field.

Not being able to continue playing was already tough for Boston. She had also been looking forward to showing improvement and avoiding foul trouble against the Mystics. Unfortunately, before she could do that, her night was over.

Aliyah Boston's foul trouble against the Sparks

Before Friday’s game, the Indiana Fever had picked up an 87-78 win over the Los Angeles Sparks on May 13. But it was still a rough night for Aliyah Boston, who had one of the worst offensive games of her WNBA career.

The star center finished with just 4 points and 7 rebounds in 23 minutes. Still, there wasn’t much doubt that Boston could bounce back offensively against the Mystic.

And the only thing she needed to work on was her foul game, as she had fouled out after playing only 23 minutes against the Sparks.

When Fever head coach Stephanie White was asked what the Sparks did so well to contain Boston after the game, she responded, "You think it was LA? I think it was foul trouble... She didn't get a chance, really."

Still, while White didn't seem to agree with some of the foul calls on her star player, the reality of the new WNBA is that more fouls will likely get called. And Aliyah Boston will need to adjust quickly to this.

Read more at She Got Game!

Written by

Sauramita Debbarma

Edited by

Yask Kotak