By Alan Snel and Cassandra Cousineau
Champs.
Again.
The Las Vegas Aces went back-to-back in WNBA Championships Wednesday when Finals MVP A’ja Wilson took her team on her back to defeat the New York Liberty, 70-69, in Game 4 before a raucous crowd at the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn. The Aces won the Finals over New York, three games to one.
The WNBA has not seen repeat title holders in more than two decades.
Only the Houston and Los Angeles franchises have won back-to-back WNBA champions.
The accomplishment took on a bigger meaning because the Aces lost two starters to foot injuries after a Game 3 loss in Brooklyn.
Last year’s Finals MVP Chelsea Gray and unheralded rebounder and defender, Kiah Stokes, were hobbled on crutches. But Gray and Stokes celebrated with their mates after the Aces’ gritty, resilient and never-say-die championship clinching win.
Wilson has been the anchor of the Las Vegas franchise from the start in 2018 and she saw a team that struggled at first in Year 1 in Las Vegas.
Wednesday, Wilson scored 24 points to lead her team, including 15 in the second half. She made 11 of 21 shots in Game 4 after sinking only four of 16 in Game 3.
“We came ready to play,” Wilson said after the game. “Everybody doubted us.”
The key quarter for the Aces was the third, when Las Vegas outscored New York, 23-12, after the Aces trailed by 12. Jackie Young added 16 points, while Cayla George was put in the starting lineup for the injured Stokes and scored 11.
Sixth woman of the year award winner Alysha Clark scored 10 points. Plum, typically a reliable scorer for the Aces, finished with seven points and five assists while playing all 40 minutes.
Now Wilson, the two-time league MVP, celebrated a league championship with her mates after the Liberty’s Courtney Vandersloot missed a long shot from the corner before the buzzer.
Final: Las Vegas 70 New York 69.
Remarkably, the Finals in 2023 played out in similar fashion to that of 2022 for the Aces — winning the first two games in Las Vegas against the Connecticut Sun last season, losing Game 3 on the road in Connecticut and then clinching the title in a very tight, come-from-behind effort in Game 4 on the road. This year, the Aces were a prolific, high-scoring team but in Wednesday’s clincher it came down to one final defensive stand on the game’s final possession by New York.
Before the game, Aces coach Becky Hammon hinted at how far the franchise has come.
“It’s ironic that those three, A’ja, Kelsey, and Jackie, were here when it sucked,” Hammon said. “They know what it’s like to have their backs against the wall and scratch and crawl their way out. This team is built on resilience.”
She said before the game, “If there’s blood in the water the sharks don’t always come though. I know every kind of shark there is. Including card sharks. We got an Ace in the pocket.”
That Ace was Wilson, who finished third in the regular season MVP voting much to the anger of Hammon. The Liberty’s Breanna Stewart received the 2023 MVP award, but in her team’s most important game of the year Wednesday, she scored only 10 points on three-for-17 shooting while 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones, Stewart’s front court mate, was limited to only six points tonight.
“You give the ball to (Wilson) and you live with the results,” Hamon said.
In the Finals, it was the six-foot, four-inch charismatic and hard-working Wilson who pulled her team to the finish line of another WNBA championship.
“Credit to Vegas,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said after the game. The 2023 Finals was the first time two former WNBA players coached teams playing each other for the league title. And she was the former coach of the San Antonio Silver Stars when Hammon played for San Antonio.
Clark dedicated the WNBA title to her dad in these emotional words after the game:
The Aces finished the 40-game schedule with a stunning 34 wins. Then they swept Chicago in two games and Dallas in three more before defeating the “super team” Liberty by winning three of four games.
In all, the Aces won 42 games out of a total of 49. That’s a WNBA record.
It was not necessarily an easy season, though.
The WNBA punished the Aces after a complaint from former Aces player Dearica Hamby, who accused the Aces of trading her to the Los Angeles Sparks because she was pregnant.
The Aces also said goodbye to last year’s Finals star, guard Riquna Williams, after she was arrested on domestic violence charges even after the charges were dropped in September.
The Aces acquired all-time WNBAer Candace Parker before the 2023 season to give their club a “super team” feel, but she was injured during the season with a stress fracture in her foot. With the Aces’ title, Parker has now won WNBA crowns with three different teams.
The Aces came to Las Vegas in 2018 when MGM Resorts International and its then-CEO, Jim Murren, bought the San Antonio franchise and rebranded the WNBA team into the Aces.
Interestingly enough, MGM Resorts had reserved the name, Aces, at one time for a potential NHL team. That team turned out to be the Vegas Golden Knights, the defending NHL Stanley Cup champs.