LAS VEGAS — The season ended for the Las Vegas Aces on Friday with an 87-77 overtime loss to the Golden State Valkyries in the WNBA semifinals. This is the second time in the past five seasons they have been eliminated in the semifinals, and it’s the first time the Aces have been swept in the playoffs since the 2020 WNBA Finals.
The Aces finished the regular season in third place with a record of 31-13. After beating the Indiana Fever in the first round of the playoffs, they lost the first two games of the best-of-five semifinals to the Valkyries. They had a lead for the first half of Game 3, but things fell apart fast in the third quarter.
Here’s what went wrong on Friday night to end the Aces’ season.
With poor ball movement, shots didn’t fall
Overall, the Aces shot 39% from the field to the Valkyries’ 41%, and they had chances to keep up with the Valkyries toward the end of the game. At halftime, the Aces were shooting 54%, but things went downhill in the third quarter.
The Valkyries held the Aces to only 7 points in the third quarter on 2-for-16 shooting (13%). The Aces had zero field goals in the quarter until guard Jackie Young made a floater with 2:07 left.
Head coach Becky Hammon pointed out the cause for the third-quarter slump: a lack of ball movement. Her team had only one assist in the quarter, from guard Dana Evans to Young for a 3-pointer with 1:35 left.
“What I saw from us was the ball was not moving,” Hammon told reporters after the game. “More importantly, we weren’t scoring. The ball quit moving. You have to have ball movement against that team. Sometimes it becomes ball and player movement. So maybe our bodies weren’t moving, so the ball’s not moving.”
A few more shots fell in the fourth quarter, as the Aces shot 6-for-15 (40%). They came back from a 6-point deficit in the third quarter to tie the game at 71 with 26.6 seconds left in regulation. With just a few seconds left, they gave the ball to point guard Chelsea Gray. Gray got off a pull-up jump shot before the buzzer, but it missed.
“I’ve hit that shot 1,000 times,” Gray told reporters after the game. “Just didn’t go my way. A lot of these opportunities and game-winners or clutch time, they’re shots that I made in the first half, and so we’re living with that.”
After that, overtime was all Valkyries. The Aces scored just 6 points, while the Valkyries had 16.
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The Aces were outrebounded again
Rebounding was the most prominent issue for the Aces throughout this series. In every game, the Aces were outrebounded by the Valkyries:
- Game 1: outrebounded 52-25
- Game 2: 30-25
- Game 3: 43-35
In an attempt to combat the Valkyries’ rebounding, the Aces decided to start 6’7 center Kalani Brown in Game 3. Brown had eight rebounds, while WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson ended the night with 10.
For the Valkyries, former Ace Kiah Stokes ended the night with 10 rebounds, and Kayla Thornton had nine, including four offensive rebounds.
“There’s people that have a knack for the glass,” Hammon told reporters after the game. “It just kind of is in their DNA, just like passing is in Chelsea’s DNA. There’s a knack for offensive rebounding, and Kayla Thornton … has a knack for that.”
After Game 1, the Aces’ primary focus was on rebounding. However, with NaLyssa Smith, a critical rebounder for the Aces, out for the season with an injury, they came up short.
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What’s next for Las Vegas?
Now, all eyes are on the offseason.
“Obviously, we got to make some adjustments,” Hammon said. “We got to make some moves, try to address our weaknesses. It’s a hard question to answer right now. There’s a lot of things coming through my head.”
Time will tell what the Aces do in the offseason. But it likely starts with getting help on the glass and maintaining their core of Wilson, Gray and Young.
