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Las Vegas looking to ‘master the basics’ after falling under .500 again
- Terrel Emerson
- Jun 25
- 3 min read
According to Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon, her team continues to drown in two feet of water.
“Basics: Screen, box-out,” Hammon said. “These are things they’ve been hearing their whole lives and we do not do them well. You have to master the basics and my team does not have them mastered.
“Seems very elementary and like I said that’s why we’ll continue to drown here in two feet of water.”
These comments were made during the postgame presser of the team’s, 94-83, loss to the Washington Mystics Thursday, June 26 from the Michelob Ultra Arena in the second half of a back-to-back. It also marked the end of a four-game homestand for Las Vegas, as it wraps it up with a split record.
“Terrible,” guard Chelsea Gray said. “Start-to-finish. We lost every quarter but that fourth quarter. And a lot of that is because our bench came in and competed and did a great job.”
The most recent loss knocked the Aces to 7-8 on the year as they sit in the fifth spot in the Western Conference. Before the loss, the team had picked up consecutive wins for the first time this season.
A five-game road trip looms for Las Vegas that will take them over to the other side of the country. It begins with a date against Phoenix Sunday, June 29 from the PHX Arena. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m.
“There’s no easy games in this league,” Hammon said. “There’s too much talent – that’s why we’re going to be expanding by another two teams. Forget about playing 20 minutes and being able to [win], those days are gone.”
In the first half of the loss, the Aces trailed by as many as nine points on two different occasions and even went into the halftime break down nine. Coming out of halftime, the team made matters worse by allowing the Mystics to go on a 9-0 start to open the third quarter.
Even with the energy injected by the second unit, Las Vegas gave up 12 rebounds to Washington in the third quarter after allowing just 14 team rebounds in the entire first half.
“We can play hard,” Hammon said when pondering third quarter adjustments. “We can start there.”
Two minutes into that shaky second-half start, Hammon opted for a full platoon swap and inserted an entire new five in place of her starters.
“The message was just to pick our starters up,” guard Dana Evans said. “We had to go in and give them a boost and be a spark off the bench to give them something to come back to and finish the game.”
Looking to get back into the game, the Aces jumped out to a 9-0 start to the fourth quarter. At one point, the team got the deficit down to seven points but would never get closer than that.
“Quite frankly, we’ve played eight quarters against this team and we’ve played hard and competed in two of them,” Hammon said. “Two out of the eight.”
Las Vegas outshot Washington, 50% to 46% from the field but were burned by a 53%-mark from downtown by the visitors.
“Everybody has a great game against us,” Evans said. “Everybody shoots the ball [well] against us. I mean 50% – that was the same thing last time.”
Guard Jackie Young scored seven straight Aces points in the first quarter on the way to a 13-point start before being held without a point for the remainder of the game.
Forward A’ja Wilson led the team with 22 points on 8-of-18 shooting to go along with a team-high five rebounds. Through 15 games this season, she has been held to single-digit rebounds seven times including three straight contests.
Gray nearly recorded a double-double with 13 points and a game-high eight assists. Fellow guard Jewell Loyd was the final starter in double-figures with 11 points.
Evans chipped in with 12 points off the bench for Las Vegas.
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