Las Vegas suffers 10th loss of season, fall again at home

A recent matchup with this year’s Commissioner Cup champions left the Las Vegas Aces looking for answers more than halfway through the WNBA season.

Las Vegas dropped another home contest, this time to Minnesota, 98-87, Wednesday, Aug. 21 from the Michelob Ultra Arena. A second Lynx win in three tries puts them ahead of the Aces by two and a half games in the league standings.

“Throw out the offense, the offense was not the problem,” Hammon said. “It was the defense. What did we score, 87. That’s enough points to win a basketball game but not when you’re giving up 100.”

Entering play, Minnesota was the league’s three seed while being closely followed by the fourth seeded Las Vegas squad. While the contest marked the end of a three-game homestand for the Aces, they will get another crack at the Lynx to start a three-game road trip.

The rematch is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 23 from the Target Center.

“Until we get our defensive identity and we stick to it we’re going to continue to struggle,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “We made so many mistakes and it was my big dogs making mistakes. It’s just hard to overcome.”

Las Vegas lost control of this one relatively early after falling behind by double-digits in the second quarter. Minnesota went on a 10-0 run to take that 10-point lead before pushing it to 11 in the third and 15 in the fourth.

The Aces’ largest lead of the game was two points.

“I don’t really care where we are,” Hammon said. “You need to play some defense. So until we do that, we might as well be digging a hole.”

While digging out of the hole, Las Vegas went on two separate 5-0 runs in an effort to claw back. Guard Kelsey Plum scored all five points during the first run near the middle of the third quarter.

Plum finished with 20 points.

Reserve guard Tiffany Hayes went on a 5-0 run by herself near the start of the fourth quarter. She’d finish with 12 points on 50% shooting.

“It’s too bad because we got some good production off of Tiff and [forward Alysha Clark],” Hammon said. “Anytime a team shoots 60% from the floor and basically 60% from three, that’s just a losing antidote.”

Olympian Napheesa Collier torched the Aces defense in crucial spots beginning early in the contest. She beat the shot clock for a deep jumper in the first and would convert a timely and-one in the second quarter on her way to 14 first half points.

Collier closed the night with 23 points but was aided by 22 points and 10 assists from starting guard Courtney Williams. The duo combined to shoot 19-for-31 from the field.

All Minnesota starters scored at least 10 points apiece.

“I’m not going to call anybody out but some of our big studs were not guarding tonight,” Hammon said. “We live with long twos — Courtney Williams got hot. It was all the other mistakes, not necessarily by our guards.”

Forward A’ja Wilson added 15 points of her own to go along with nine rebounds and six assists. Entering play, Wilson and Collier were the league’s only two players averaging at least 20 points per game and at least 10 rebounds per game.

“[The defense] is just leaving people,” Hammon said. “I think they have a special defense called, ‘Blue’ and they just don’t guard people, they go and guard A’ja.”

Guard Jackie Young led all scorers with 26 points highlighted by a 6-for-8 mark from deep. She drilled three threes in each half.