Las Vegas captures first win over Dallas in final regular season chance

It took until the final showing of the regular season but this year’s Las Vegas Aces finally have a win over the Dallas Wings.

In the last regular season opportunity, Las Vegas topped Dallas, 99-84, from the Michelob Ultra Arena Thursday, June 25. Entering play, the team was coming off an 11-point loss to New York, its third double-digit loss of the season.

“I shouldn’t have to push too many buttons coming off a not great loss to New York,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “Then Dallas thumped us pretty good down there so not a lot of emotional buttons I had to push today.”

Thursday marked the end of a three-game homestand where the Aces went 2-1. In total, the team is 5-3 at home this season.

Overall, the club is 13-5 on the year after entering Thursday’s contest tied with the Atlanta Dream for the second spot in the league standings. Both teams trailed the league-leading Minnesota Lynx.

“It just means we’re moving in the right direction,” Hammon said. “I’m a big process-oriented coach and we’re still in process [...] Again, the biggest thing I’m always harping on is consistency.”

The team is back in action Sunday, June 28 from the Wintrust Arena in Chicago when it will take on the Chicago Sky. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. That will be the final showing before the Commissioner’s Cup Final against the New York Liberty two days later.

Las Vegas started much faster in this one which included going up by 13 points in the game’s opening quarter. An early 7-0 run in the second quarter added to that cause before eventually going up 17 points in the first half.

Just before halftime, Dallas went on an 11-2 run to trim the deficit to single-digits. At one point of the third quarter, the visitors were able to get the home team’s lead down to four.

That third quarter included four Aces turnovers in a 49-second span.

“We executed what we wanted to take away,” Hammon said. “We’re getting closer, still looking for that consistent, no holes, no two or three-minute lulls where [the opponent] goes on a 12, 14-0 run or whatever. We avoided some of those big runs tonight.”

Las Vegas responded with an 8-3 run after its lead was cut to four. Couple that with a 7-1 start to the fourth quarter and the team would eventually go up by as many as 20 points in the final frame.

Six different players scored for the Aces in that opening quarter led by the reigning league MVP A’ja Wilson. The product from South Carolina shot 4-of-7 in the first 10 minutes while the rest of the club went 5-for-9 from the floor.

“It was a win that we needed and a game that we needed to buckle in,” Wilson said. “This team, the Dallas Wings, averages 96 points against us. So I just think we really had to buckle in on the defensive end and I think that’s what made us flow on the offensive end and why we were successful.”

WIlson tallied 16 points in the first half on her way to 32 points in the win on 12-of-21 from the field. She also added nine rebounds in the win.

In addition, Wilson went 8-of-11 from the free throw line while teammate Jackie Young added 10 makes on her 10 attempts from the charity stripe.

“It’s hard just maintaining the same mentality throughout the course of 40 minutes while getting different bodies and different looks,” Wilson said. “It’s not even the game that’s in front of me, it’s up here. So once you kind of get past that and get out of our own mind, it’s literally just a game that I’ve been playing for years.”

Young closed her night with 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists.

Guard Chelsea Gray chipped in with 12 points and a game-high nine assists which was nearly half of her team’s 20-assist total. In doing so, she became the third player in league history to accumulate 4,500 points and 2,000 assists in her career.

Reserve center Cheyenne Parker-Tyus dropped in 13 points in 17 minutes of action. She has now scored in double-figures in back-to-back games for the first time since 2024.

“A couple of years ago she was an all-star,” Hammon said. “So we know she’s capable [...] It’s about matchups sometimes.”

Fellow reserve Kierstan Bell was the final player in double-digits with 10 points. It’s her first double-figure scoring outing since scoring 18 points against Dallas this past August. In fact, her last four double-digit scoring outings over the last three seasons have all come against the Wings.

In total, the bench scored 31 points in the win.

“Getting that kind of production from our bench is huge,” Hammon said. “It takes a load off our starting five.”