Nurse, Charles lead New York past Fever in 87-81 OT win

INDIANAPOLIS – Canadian Kia Nurse scored a career-high 34 points and Tina Charles added 23 and grabbed 10 rebounds and New York held off a late Indiana rally with an 87-81 overtime win Saturday night.

Charles gave the Liberty the lead for good at 81-79 with 34.5 seconds left.

At the end of regulation, Kelsey Mitchell scored with 12.6 seconds to go to put Indiana up 71-69 before Charles made a pair of free throws with eight seconds left to force overtime. New York (2-2) built its largest lead at 53-33 on Charles’ 3-point play with 6:45 left in the third quarter. Indiana closed to 58-52 with 19-3 run to end the quarter.

Nurse, from Hamilton, scored 11 points during a 16-0 run for a 35-19 lead with 5:12 remaining before halftime.

Kiah Stokes grabbed 12 rebounds for the Liberty and Nurse — who made 15 of 16 free throws — collected nine boards.

Mitchell led the Fever (0-6) with 26 points.