By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
Photos by Steve Rosenthal
The Las Vegas Aces extended their season by at least one more home game after the WNBA team played one of its strongest games of the season with a 92-75 win over the Washington Mystics before a loud crowd of 6,175 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center Sunda afternoon.
Game 4 of the best-of-five WNBA semifinals is Tuesday with a time to be determined.
Aces center Liz Cambage asserted herself inside with 28 points, while A’ja Wilson added another 21 points and Kayla McBride chipped in with 18 points.
Guard Kelsey Plum had a nice overall floor game with nine assists, and scored nine points, too.
The Mystics’ MVP power forward Elena Delle Donne had 22 points to lead Washington.
It was a rough game for Elena Delle Donne and the Mystics. The Mystics lead the series, 2-1 in games.
The Aces had a spirited home crowd on their side, though superfan Raiders owner Mark Davis wasn’t there. He was likely in Minnesota for the Raiders’ loss to the Vikings.
MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, who is usually at most home games, was also missing. MGM Resorts International President Bill Hornbuckle attended along with more than 6,000 others.
Mystics coach Mike Thibault said it was the team’s first “stinker” of the playoffs and that the Aces were the most desperate team.
Here’s Aces coach Bill Laimbeer’s post game comments:
Well we have a series going on. We knew it was a series. I think some people didn’t. We knew in the first two games that we played with the level of intensity needed to compete. We did the same thing tonight. We got a good win. It’s only one. You can’t win three until you win one. You can’t win three until you win two. That is our next task at home. I thought the crowd was phenomenal. I think our organization did a great job getting people to the game. I hope they enjoyed themselves. I thought we played a solid basketball game. We can play better. I was very disappointed in our turnovers again. We got the lead and went back to our old ways of throwing the ball all over the gym, that can’t happen against a team like Washington. That is a recipe for disaster. I thought our bigs did a good job tonight. I thought Liz and A’ja controlled the inside well. We found them and gave them the ball in scoring positions which is great. Overall it was a great team performance. We controlled the rebounding for most of the game which is a positive for us but it’s also who we are. We are an inside rebounding basketball team and tonight we went out and played our game and got a win. But like I said at the start of this conversation, that is only one and we have to go work hard to get another one. They are going to play really hard again. They are going to come with their best effort and we have to match the intensity and play our best game Tuesday night.
*
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter and Instagram. Like LVSportsBiz.com on Facebook.