Pushing Peace and Pace

Evans leaning on faith in first-year run with Aces

Las Vegas guard Dana Evans pushes past the defense of Washington guard Jade Melbourne. Photo Credit: Las Vegas Aces

Guard Dana Evans is learning to take things as they come in her seventh season. Maybe the most important lesson has been one that’s always been known but continues to be reinforced.

Most of the game is mental.

“Not playing with peace is letting one thing escalate,” she said. “Just not staying in the zone. Now, I feel like I don’t think I can be shook [...] This game is mental.”

This way of thinking has allowed Evans to no longer be rattled when she plays but instead be rooted.

Aces guard Dana Evans goes up for a layup inside the Crypto.com Arena. Photo Credit: Las Vegas Aces

“What I wasn’t doing as much that I’m doing now is being consistent in my reading,” she said. “Consistent in my Bible, consistent in my journaling – just my daily habits have changed since then and I see a change within my mind and my body.

“I don’t think it was ever purposely that I wasn’t doing my reading because we have so much stuff to do. We have scouts, we’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do that but when I made God my priority again – my number one priority again, everything else fell in line.”

Even while being one of the 156 active players in the WNBA, she finds the time to continue her practice because of the fruit it bears.

The 27-year-old always believed in a higher power but as a youngster from Gary, Indiana, hoop dreams often interfered with rounding out a routine.

“Growing up, I’ve always believed in God,” she said. “Honestly, basketball was still running my life back then too. So I had AAU tournaments but I always had a relationship with him and I always prayed to him every single night. I never went a night without praying to him or even a day without having dialogue with him.”

This year, she found the right balance.

Perhaps coincidentally, Evans thinks not, she’s turned in one of her best WNBA seasons as a professional. It marked her first time playing in every game as the league moved to 44 games for the first time ever, she scored in double-figures 11 times including three straight in July with a season-high of 21 points on the road in Washington.

All the while starring in a Sixth Woman role for head coach Becky Hammon’s Las Vegas Aces. In the team’s first playoff game, she tallied 13 points with three made three-pointers and a playoff career-high six assists.

“[Without peace] you’re too up-and-down,” she said. “You’re on a roller coaster, you get high, you get low. When you have that peace, you stay at that middle ground. You can’t get too high or too low and that’s the best way to be as a professional athlete.

Las Vegas guard Dana Evans smiles during a postgame interview inside Michelob Ultra Arena. Photo Credit: Las Vegas Aces

“When I can stay in that headspace where I had a turnover but I didn’t even think about it. I got that ball out and I just pushed the pace and I got something going, that’s when I knew, ‘Yeah, you’re in a different headspace because you’re not letting little things bother you.’”

If Evans were to ever deviate from the path she’s set for herself, she has Hammon and her Las Vegas teammates for continued reassurance.

“It’s just great to have that in your back pocket,” Evans said. “When you’ve got people surrounding you that want to win, they want to see you succeed, they want to see you do well. It’s just a winning mentality here so you don’t have time to put your head down.”

Though young, Evans has experience winning at the highest level in this league. She was a part of the 2021 Chicago Sky team that won it all.

That year, Chicago went 16-16 before winning eight of its last 10 games to hoist the title. Ironically enough, this year’s Las Vegas team was 14-14 before reeling off 16 straight wins to secure the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

“Just being able to weather the storms,” she said. “No path is going to be a straight-line journey. It’s going to have some bumps, going to have some hiccups but again, it’s how you respond to things.

“When you’re in the storm, [God] wants you to rejoice in that storm. He wants you to take the good from the storm [...] What did you learn from that? What was the lesson? How are you going to be better from that?”