Story by Cassandra Cousineau and Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
The Las Vegas Aces are just one win from a WNBA repeat championship.
The Aces buried the New York Liberty in the second half for a second straight game in the WNBA Finals and walked off the court at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena Wednesday evening with a decisive 104-76 win in front of a raucous sellout crowd of more than 10,000 towel-waving fans. Attendance was announced at 10,232.
Just one night after the Vegas Golden Knights raised their championship banner to the roof, the Aces stand on the brink of winning a second straight WNBA title in Sin City. The Aces have won 11 straight games and have not lost since dropping a game in New York Aug. 28. In the postseason, the Aces swept Chicago and Dallas before blistering the Liberty Sunday and Wednesday in the Best-of-Five Finals.
Aces owner Mark Davis joined 10,000 others in celebrating a win that as keyed by Las Vegas’ intensity on defense in the second half. The Aces held New York to only 32 points in the second half.
That was after the Aces bolted to a 19-2 lead in the first quarter on the way to scoring a record-setting 38 points after the first ten minutes before the “super team” Liberty cut the Las Vegas advantage to eight points at halftime.
After the game, Aces coach Becky Hammon said she was speechless about how well her team played.
“Those girls hooped today,” she said.
The Aces’ Big 4 of A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum was devastating as the Aces outscored New York, 52-32, in the second half. The Aces scored 17 of the first 20 points in the third quarter and that was the ballgame.
Wilson had a monster game with 26 points and 15 rebounds.
Young poured in 24 points with eight rebounds.
Plum added 23 points and eight assists.
The point guard, Gray, dished out 11 assists with her 14 points.
After the game, New York coach Sandy Brondello said her team lacked grit and defensive intensity, pointing out the Aces had chemistry on the offensive end.
The Aces go for their WNBA crown Sunday in Brooklyn where Las Vegas plays New York at 12 Noon Vegas time on ABC network TV. In 17 previous WNBA Finals where a team trailed two games to zero in the Best-of-Five format, not a single trailing team came back to win three straight to claim a title.
The Liberty and Aces split four regular season games, with New York defeating Las Vegas in the Commissioner’s Cup game here in Vegas.