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Las Vegas back on right track with double-digit win over Golden State
- Terrel Emerson
- May 31
- 3 min read
Back to winning on the road for the Las Vegas Aces after a short two-game losing streak.
They improved to 5-1 on the road with a, 91-81, win over the Golden State Valkyries Sunday, May 31 from Chase Center. Coming into the game, Las Vegas was sixth in the league while Golden State sat in the second spot in the standings.
“We just wanted to come in and compete,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “We’re still early in the season and we want to be locked in and nailed down with our basics. I thought we had a pretty clean, basic program coming in. Clarity makes you quicker.”
Now two games above .500 at 5-3 on the year, the Aces still have one leg left on this three-game road trip. To close the trek, the team will head to Los Angeles for a meeting with the Sparks.
Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. that will mark the team’s first Commissioner’s Cup game this year.
“We’re a process kind of team,” Hammon said. “We believe that if you go through the right processes, you do it the right way you’ll get the results. Then the results will be there.”
Las Vegas led the entire second half, even once leading by more than 20 points after halftime. However, a late 16-2 run by Golden State put things in jeopardy.
“We had some lapses,” Hammon said. “I thought we took some quick shots, we had a couple of turnovers, they started hitting some threes. This is professional basketball, this happens all the time.”
A fast start out of halftime saw the Aces go on a 7-0 run to go up by nine. Before the end of the frame, the team would go up by as many as 18 points highlighted by a 14-1 run before the final buzzer of the third quarter.
In total, the Aces won the third quarter, 29-13.
“I think people can get oh’d and ah’d about the offense but I want to be a really great defensive team – and we really haven’t been 10 games out,” Hammon said. “Today was a good start, to hold this team in the -teens for two quarters is really, really tough to do on somebody’s homecourt.”
At one point of the fourth quarter, Las Vegas went up by 24 points in a game that featured the teams implementing two different offensive methods. While the Aces scored 38 points in the paint, the Valkyries cashed in on 16 made three-pointers.
Reigning MVP A’ja Wilson posted a monster stat line with 28 points and a season-high 15 rebounds. Her effort helped her team record 45 rebounds in the win while winning the rebounding battle by 12.
Fellow forward NaLyssa Smith added 15 points and nine rebounds.
“Well A obviously draws a lot of attention,” Hammon said. “It was a little bit of swarm ball in the paint. It speaks to the toughness – NaLyssa is a person that doesn’t get a lot of plays drawn for her and is still finding ways to impact games in really big ways.”
Veteran forward Stephanie Talbot reached double-digits for the first time in her first year with the club. She finished with 10 points in the win.
Guard play was largely influenced by three-time champion Jackie Young who may have finally had her breakout performance of the season. It began with a fast start to the contest with seven points on three makes on her first four attempts from the field.
“Jackie just being Jackie,” Hammon said. “I was hoping she could get one more dime there so she could get her double-double but she was flirting with a triple-double.”
Young hit double-figures in the second quarter on a made three before ending her night with 23 points, a game-high nine assists and seven rebounds.
After entering the game in the first quarter, guard Chennedy Carter pumped out six points in her first six minutes on the floor. She’d only play three more minutes for the remainder of the contest after taking a hard fall.
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