When the Indiana Fever were taken down in the first round by the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, fans came up with a multitude of reasons for their elimination. However, sometimes the simplest explanation is the most likely one, and in this case, it’s the one that Sophie Cunningham, one of Indiana’s key players, is offering. After all, the game is about making shots, and for the Fever guard, her team simply didn’t do it enough times.

“It sucks,” Cunningham said during an appearance on the most recent episode of This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.

“When you feel like you have the potential, you have the potential of your team, you know what you’re made of, and you can do it, but we just didn’t get it done… First game we got blown out, so not great. Had a pretty good game individually, but it doesn’t matter. Second game we won, nice, at home, and then went back out to Vegas. Great environment. I’ll give them that, but some tough calls. We didn’t make our shots, just didn’t play great.

Indiana’s first-round series against the Aces offered a glimpse of both teams at both their strongest and lowest points. The Fever lost Game 1 by 17 points before bouncing back with a 99-89 win at home, ultimately falling 94-83 in Game 3.

For Cunningham, the defeat was especially disappointing because she believed the Fever had everything they needed to compete with the defending champions, and she found it difficult to accept the loss, knowing what the team was capable of. The numbers illustrate her point.

Indiana shot 38.5% from the field in Game 3, while Vegas shot 45.3%. Five-time MVP A’ja Wilson led the Aces with 36 points and 10 rebounds, while Chelsea Gray added 23 points. For the Fever, their Big Three of Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston, and Kelsey Mitchell combined for 60 points, but were extremely inefficient.

The trio combined for 21-for-57 from the field, including shooting 29.6% from three in 27 attempts.

A key factor in the Aces’ win was the ability to generate offense from free throws, something the Fever couldn’t overcome with their low free-throw numbers. The Aces shot nearly double the number the Fever did from the charity stripe (35 vs. 20), with Wilson shooting 15 and making 12.

In fact, that observation was among the many things head coach Stephanie White recognized as going wrong in Game 3. She came to a conclusion similar to Cunningham’s.

“I think some of it is we missed some shots that we typically make. I thought there was a level of physicality; we couldn’t get to the rim,” White said after Game 3. “They turned it up a little bit… It’s a game of the margins. They had 35 free throws; we had 20.”

Following the series, Cunningham has not been quiet about it and her displeasure with the referees, highlighting one incident in which a ref was unprepared.

“Steph[anie] White comes and calls a timeout and tries to challenge [a play],” she said during an episode of her No Hesitation podcast.

“one of the officials calls her for a [technical] for coming out on the court. And we’re like, ‘We’re trying to challenge it.’ And then one of the refs, Tim, I said, ‘Tim, why can’t we challenge that?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t know the rules.’ What? You’re a ref in playoffs, and you don’t know the rules?”

Indiana’s season may not have ended the way anyone on the team hoped, but Cunningham’s assessment of the loss is both simple and insightful. Though the team could very well have competed with the Aces and even advanced to round two, they just couldn’t do enough to turn that potential into a playoff series win.