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Aces’ defensive effort stifles Storm as final regular season homestand begins
Sitting in the third spot in the league’s standings coming into Sunday, the Las Vegas Aces would play the New York Liberty in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs.
With only a few games left to improve its postseason seeding, Las Vegas thumped Seattle, 98-77, Sunday, Sept. 20 from Michelob Ultra Arena. That marked the fourth straight win for the defending champions including back-to-back wins over the Storm going back to Thursday night’s win inside Climate Pledge Arena.
“I think we had good moments,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “Obviously, our defense started off a little slow – we gave up four layups to open the game so I didn’t like that very much. So they buckled in.”
As the regular season winds to a close, the Aces currently sit at 29-13 on the year as they begin their final regular season homestand. That short stint ends Tuesday, Sept. 22 from Michelob Ultra Arena when the Los Angeles Sparks come to town.
Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
“I’m not going to say my preference of who we play [in the playoffs],” Hammon said. “We want to just make sure we’re playing our best basketball going into the playoffs. I think wherever everybody falls, it’s gonna be a dogfight.”
It was evident early that Las Vegas’ defense was locked in and Seattle was going to have a hard time working through it. In the first quarter, the home team went on a 17-2 run to go up 15 points.
Before halftime, both teams had combined for 15 steals while the Aces finished the game with 13 as a collective. Those forced turnovers were converted into 27 fast break points the other way by Las Vegas.
“I liked us in transition,” Hammon said. “That was probably my favorite part of the game.”
Though fighting an uphill battle nearly from jump, the Storm cut the deficit to just six points on two separate occasions in the third quarter. After that slight slip up, the Aces turned up the defensive intensity once again and held the visitors to just a single point over the final 2:43 heading into the fourth quarter.
In that final 10-minute stretch, Seattle was limited to 13 points on the way to shooting 39% in the losing effort versus 51% for Las Vegas.
“When we’re not locked in I think we’re very capable of giving up big quarters,” Hammon said. “It’s about continuing to just tighten up those screws and tighten up our focus on the defensive end always.”
The collective of guard Flau’jae Johnson and center Dominique Malonga combined to score 54 of the Storm’s 77 points.
“I think we’re unified [defensively],” forward A’ja Wilson said. “I think we’re together, I think we’re slowly getting on the same page [...] We know we now have to pick up [forward NaLyssa Smith] and it’s going to take all of us to do so.”
Rookie guard Ta’Niyah Latson scored eight straight points late in regulation as the Aces went up by 21 points. Earlier in the frame, guard Chelsea Gray reached double-figures with seven points on her way to 15 for the game.
All that and the night still belonged to Wilson, who became the first player in league history to score 1,000 points in a single second multiple times. During a 10-point second quarter, she surpassed the thousand-point threshold for the second time in the last three seasons, this time in 39 games.
“She just shot her free throw like nothing happened,” Hammon said. “Last time, they stopped the game and there was a big to do about it. It is still a big deal, you’re right, you don’t want to just skip over it. She’s just been incredibly efficient. Especially the last four years.”
Wilson’s final stat line read 30 points including 16 makes on 18 free throw attempts to go along with eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and a block.
Guard Jackie Young scored 12 of her eventual 23 points in the first quarter on 5-of-6 shooting including two makes from three-point range. She also added a game-high eight assists coupled with two steals.
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