Becky Hammon tells it like it is — Hear from the Las Vegas Aces

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So following Sunday afternoon’s Game 1 loss by her Las Vegas Aces to the New York Liberty, Hammon sounded less certain her team could improve upon their initial performance, and was simply stating facts when she pointed out that the Liberty had outscored the Aces in transition, 16-6, and outrebounded them, 31-22.

“I think there was a wear-down factor,” Hammon said. “…At the end of the day, we lost a lot of hustle points, which that can’t be the case… they just kicked our ass in every element of the game, I thought.”

Accordingly, heading into Game 2, Hammon reiterated a need to see her team neutralize some of the Liberty advantages. Could the Aces get into their offense faster? Could they make life more difficult for Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart? Could they find more offense from, critically, Chelsea Gray, and a bench that’s always played short throughout the Las Vegas run of dominance?

And most critically: when the Liberty adjusted, as they have so often, would it matter?

It was obvious early on that the Aces knew what had to change. Jonquel Jones saw uncontested threes in the first half of Game 1, but the closeouts came immediately on Tuesday night. Defending Stewart and Ionescu with physicality? More fouls, but more challenges on their shots, less efficiency from those two Liberty stars.

In fact, no Liberty player reached double figures until Breanna Stewart hit a pair of free throws with 5:36 left in the third quarter. The thing is? Those shots put New York up by 7 points, 57-50.

This is not an Aces team that has answers for everything the Liberty can do. In 2023, they did. But New York has solved their Courtney Vandersloot defensive matchup issue against the Aces by forcing them into a mismatch of their own, developing and elevating Leonie Fiebich into the starter and future star on this New York roster. (Chicago fans, you’ve been through enough lately, I beg you, don’t Google the Leonie Fiebich trade.) Vandersloot in the second unit fits perfectly and has fully bought in on it, a remarkable selflessness from the future Hall of Famer.

For Las Vegas, Gray has been playing through her own physical limitations all year, willing herself into becoming an Olympian and the starting point guard for the Aces. But the difference in her capacity is obvious. A’ja Wilson‘s as strong a defender as anyone in the WNBA this side of Napheesa Collier (I kid, I kid, they’re both great, why is every basketball superlative zero-sum and filled with recriminations now?), but the Liberty were finishing at the rim because she cannot guard everybody, because Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum can only do so much. It is the Aces in this series left to figure out answers, seemingly playing from behind at all times.

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There’s this extra gear, one the Aces knew how to reach, know it still, but it is the Liberty who are best able to access it through the first two games. Midway through the second quarter, following a pair of easy finishes at the rim, Hammon tried to use rage to rally the troops, screaming a few seconds into a timeout before slamming her clipboard against a seat along the Aces bench and walking away.

In a meta critique of her own team after the game, Hammon pointed out that the very fact she had to get mad at the Aces in the middle of a WNBA semifinals matchup over what she repeatedly called “edge” was itself the problem.

“It shouldn’t come to that point — I don’t want to call a timeout because I’m so frustrated at them, which I did tonight,” Hammon said, a theme she’d return to during her postgame presser. “Where it was, I’m not mad at the officials, I’m not mad at the New York Liberty, I’m mad at us, because of the amount of layups we’re giving up. And it was a thing in the first game, it’s been a thing in the second game, and if it’s going to be a thing in the third game, we’re not going to win.”

The Aces did reduce the gap in fastbreak points, ultimately losing that battle, 12-10. The rebounding margin was reduced to 35-29, Jonquel Jones falling short of her double-double goal.

But by the third quarter, the Liberty had reached nearly their total points in the paint they’d scored all of Game 1. It was New York coming up with the hustle plays, Ionescu, then Vandersloot herself coming up with chasedown blocks. Hammon had said prior to the series: “They’re big. We’re fast.” So far, New York has been both, and Hammon seemed to know it, putting her hand to her head like she had a headache this big… after a mini-burst by her Aces had forced a New York time out.

Asked by a media member how she was doing pregame, Hammon answered sardonically, “It’s been joyful.”

Truly, winning is hard in this league, repeating is harder, and threepeating has not been done since the Comets opened the WNBA with dominance. There’s a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the greatness of A’ja Wilson, who New York made the clear decision to contain at all costs, yet posted her second game of strong scoring with 20+ points and efficiency across the board, forsaking her early-season plot to simply overpower everyone with Gray absent, something which produced regularly eye-popping numbers but merely intermittent results. It’s been enough to get Las Vegas this far. It isn’t enough, not nearly, so far, against the 2024 New York Liberty.

“You can’t make that many mistakes when you are playing the best team in the league,” Hammon said. “And make no mistake, they are the best team. No doubt. They’re the best team in the league, they’ve played it all year, just like we were last year… they’ve been the best team all year because of their habits, because of their edge, because of their incredible attention to detail.”

To Hammon it goes back much further. She doesn’t think this Aces team has played with the same intensity, that “edge”, all year. She didn’t sound like a coach trying to plumb the depths of her team’s psychology with a motivating message. She sounded like an astute basketball observer methodically explaining why the Liberty have looked like the better team so far.

Early in the fourth, another example: Sabrina Ionescu got to the rim, uncontested. Jonquel Jones bombed away from three. New York’s bigs shoot from deep, their guards get to the rim at will. Stronger and faster. A three-point lead ballooned to eight, New York’s cheers echoing in Hammon’s ears at a decibel level she knew well. She didn’t throw a fit. Instead, she looked up in resignation, shook her head slightly, walked to the endline just in front of the Aces bench, thought for a moment, and started diagraming another play on her white board.

Hammon wasn’t giving up. Not yet. Nor are the Aces players. Strange things happen when you combine short series and great players sometimes. I’d asked Alysha Clark whether, in her experience, a team can find a missing edge midway through the playoffs. Clark, with a smile, answered definitively: “Yes.”

As for Hammon? After Game 1, she’d described Game 2 as do-or-die. She was asked, then about that declaration after Game 2.

“Did I say it was must-win? I was lying,” Hammon joked, flicking away her previous statement with one hand and a sly smile.”

Someday, as soon as Friday night, these Aces will face an actual must-win and they won’t do it. Even though they know how. The 2011-2017 Minnesota Lynx knew how to win, and they did in the odd years, but not the even ones during that era. So did the San Antonio Spurs Hammon so often cites, winning titles three times between 2002-03 and 2006-07, but losing two other times. Knowing is required to get to the mountaintop but it isn’t enough to stay there forever and always.

Championships are not won by miles, but by inches. And Hammon knows it, sees that the Liberty have pulled just ahead of her Aces. She is a realist. Ionescu and Stewart finished off a Game 2 win, and Hammon quickly found Brondello and Liberty assistant Olaf Lange for hugs, then left the Barclays Center court without another stop, walking through through three “Liberty Win” signholders popping onto the court to encourage a jubilant home crowd and into the tunnel.

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