Gray’s daggers help Aces stave off regular season sweep at hands of Fever

Guard Chelsea Gray drilled not one but two game-changing three-pointers to help her Las Vegas Aces fend off what would’ve been a rare regular season sweep.

With five members of the upcoming Women’s FIBA roster on the floor, Las Vegas dumped Indiana, 86-84, in overtime Thursday, Aug. 6 from Conseco Fieldhouse. That put an end to four straight regular season losses by the defending champions at the hands of the Fever in the last two seasons. Moreover, those four losses were by an average of nearly 22 points per game.

“We had a play – it wasn’t for me,” Gray said. “It wasn’t drawn up that way. [Center] Aliyah Boston deflected it, it was a pass to me and it was going to be a different shot.

“In overtime, first of all, [forward A’ja Wilson] had a great stop. We always talk about it coming down to our defense.”

As Las Vegas moved to 13-4 on the road this season, Thursday also marked the third game of a five-game road trip which is set to continue Saturday, Aug. 8 from the Target Center when the team takes on Minnesota.

Entering Thursday night, the Aces (21-9 at the time) trailed the league-leading Lynx (25-6). That meeting between the WNBA’s top two teams will commence at 10 a.m. up north.

“I’ve seen it,” Hammon said. “That’s why I’m optimistic when we do play defense because I know we can win any game when we’re locked in defensively.”

Fans inside the Conseco Fieldhouse saw 12 lead changes in the 45-minute contest with the last lead coming on a game-winning three-point field goal by the aforementioned Gray. To conclude regulation, she did the same thing to send the game into the extra session.

With Gray’s clutch longballs, she finished the night with 11 points and seven assists despite five turnovers.

“[Guard Jackie Young] chased it down and did a push pass to Chelsea who was in the right spot at the right time,” Hammon said. “But if there’s two people you want taking clutch threes, it’s definitely those two and they were both over there in the vicinity.”

Earlier in the eventual win, the Aces were on the wrong end of six straight misses from the field that led to the team going down by double-digits.

The Fever ultimately went up 20 points in the first half behind a 9-for-9 shooting start to the second quarter.

Right after jumping ahead, Indiana missed its next four shot attempts as it went into halftime without a point over the final 3:59 of the first half. Moreover, the home team’s first points of the third quarter didn’t come until the 6:24-mark of the frame.

Following a nine-point third quarter for the Fever, the final numbers read nine points for the home team over a 13-minute and 59-second stretch.

“I really love how we started the game,” Gray said. “We started off the game aggressive in pick-and-rolls [...] Defensively, I love the way we started and then we buckled down down the stretch and was able to get stops and put ourselves in position to win the game.”

Gray added a game-high four steals despite playing a good portion of the fourth quarter and overtime period with five fouls.

Additionally, Wilson posted two blocks and a steal with that lone steal coming on the team’s final defensive play ahead of Gray’s game-winner.

Wilson stole the ball away from future FIBA teammate Caitlin Clark with 6.6 left on the game clock.

“It don’t matter what happened the first 38 minutes – the whole game, overtime, we know who we’re rocking with,” Gray said. “There’s too much that we’ve seen. There’s too much that she’s done along with Jackie Young and myself.”

In the fourth quarter, Clark was responsible for two deep threes that resulted in a deafening road from the crowd. Moreover, the aforementioned Boston converted a second chance bucket late in regulation on the heels of an offensive rebound.

Indiana’s tandem of Clark and Boston combined to score 41 points on 16-of-35 from the floor. Additionally, the team was led by 28 points from guard Kelsey Mitchell.

“Super proud of our defense,” Hammon said. “I haven’t been able to say that a lot. But super proud of our defense on a night where we really struggled to shoot [...] In an overtime game to only give up 84 [points] to that offense is just a really great job.”

Wilson added 26 points and 13 rebounds of her own in the winning effort. That stat line followed a 2-for-6 shooting start in the first quarter and a 2-for-8 mark in the first half in total.

Overcoming that earlier run was largely based on the offense of Young and forward NaLyssa Smith. It was a 22-0 run in totality by the visitors that catapulted Las Vegas back into contention.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Gray said. “And we caught fire and got momentum heading into halftime. That’s what we needed, we needed to see the ball go through the net, we needed to get some stops defensively and have them on their heels a little bit.”

Young had a rough start to the contest as well to the tune of a 0-for-5 mark from the field. She went on a 13-0 second quarter run by herself after the bigger 22-0 run was started by the aforementioned Smith.

The duo of Young and Smith combined to score 36 points on 15-of-32 shooting to go along with 13 rebounds, 10 assists, a steal and a block.

“Just keeping our cool,” Smith said. “Like [Gray] said, knowing it’s a game of runs, there’s highs, there’s lows but we’ve just got to stick together. At the end of the day, we have great leaders that’s going to lead us the whole time and make sure we keep our cool.”