Las Vegas’ regular season concludes with all-star esque performances from Wilson, Loyd

Las Vegas still had something to play for in the regular season finale as it entered the final day of the regular season with a chance to be the No. 2 or the No. 3 seed heading into the WNBA Playoffs this weekend.

Keeping close eyes on the Golden State - Los Angeles matchup, the Aces whacked the Phoenix Mercury 100-82 Thursday, Sept. 24 to close the regular season slate. Despite the win, a narrow one-point win by the Valkyries over the Sparks kept the defending champions from climbing up to that second spot.

“It was a good win,” guard Jewell Loyd said. “Personally the last couple of weeks, just [been] trying to get a rhythm. Find it, keep it. Come in and add some energy to our starters.”

Ending the year with a 31-13 overall record, Las Vegas now knows it will be the No. 3 seed for the playoffs. As a result, the team will face No. 6 Indiana in the first round. Through three games played during the regular season, the Fever took two of the three meetings with the lone Aces win coming on a buzzer-beater by former Finals MVP Chelsea Gray.

“Obviously, they have a high-powered offense,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “That’s job No. 1: slowing them up a little bit. Easier said than done, it’s going to be a tall task for us. But we know coming in, defense is going to be a game-changer and we’re going to need a lot of it against them.”

Las Vegas will be entering the postseason on a seven-game win streak with all Game 1s scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 27. Start times for each have yet to be determined.

“Just play with high energy on both sides of the floor,” Loyd said. “We’re trying to build and stack games heading into the playoffs and I think we did a good job of that.”

One of the final regulation images from last season was a turnaround jumper by four-time MVP A’ja Wilson to seal the Aces’ third title in the last four years. She appeared to return to that form in the same building to close out the regular season this time around.

Wilson scored the first six points of the game for her team on the way to 17 points in the first quarter on 8-of-11 shooting. In the first half, she posted 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting as her team ran away with this one.

By the final horn, Wilson had recorded 34 points on 16-of-28 from the field to go along with 10 rebounds.

When the two teams last met, Las Vegas won by 48 points and for a good portion of this one, looked like it would exceed that margin of victory. The team went up by 15 points in the first quarter behind a hot shooting start to the tune of 14-of-23.

Before halftime, the Aces went up by as many as 31 points.

Phoenix wasn’t put away in that first half and opened the third quarter on an 11-0 run. Eventually, the home team won the third quarter by 12 points. Furthermore, the team cut the deficit down to single-digits at nine points late in regulation.

In total, the Mercury won the second half, 46-35.

“It’s really hard to lock down teams,” Loyd said. “Teams are really talented and we know that Phoenix is a really good second half team, definitely in the fourth quarter as well.”

Loyd had her best scoring game of the season as she poured in 17 points in the second quarter alone. She opened that frame by scoring the first nine points of the 10-minute session. She finished with a season-high 25 points on 9-of-14 from the floor including five made three-pointers. Before Thursday night, she had only scored 20 points or more one time this season.

“We’ve been stacking games together,” she said. “[The bench’s] job is to find energy on both sides of the floor. We want to use this momentum to hopefully push us to the end.”

As a team, the Aces scored 35 bench points en route to the win.

Forward Stephanie Talbot scored 14 points for the second straight game and is averaging nearly 10 points per game since returning to league play following this year’s FIBA World Cup.

Guard Chelsea Gray was the final player in double-figures with 12 points and 10 assists to finish off her double-double outing.

Fellow backcourt starter Jackie Young was held to just five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 34 minutes of action. She did however, haul in seven rebounds and dish out a game-high 11 assists. This season, she averaged a career-high 6.8 assists per game.