Aces HC Voices Dissatisfaction With A’ja Wilson and Co. vs. Dream Despite 12th Consecutive Win

Sometimes basketball doesn’t whisper, it slaps you with a reality check. The Las Vegas Aces felt that sting in early August when the Minnesota Lynx stormed out of the All-Star break and nearly doubled them up in their own house. Final score: 111–58. Not just the worst home loss for Vegas soil, but the worst home loss in WNBA history. Minnesota walked away looking like the league’s valedictorian, while Las Vegas got stamped with a big, red “F”- straight from Becky Hammon herself, whose scowl that night looked carved in stone.

That stumble left them at 14-14. It made them look like a team neither good enough to chase homecourt nor bad enough to fall out of the bracket. But Hammon’s postgame message was simple: no rewinding, just move forward. “We have to move on. We have another game tomorrow, we have to get the win tomorrow.” Thankfully, the Aces did exactly that, against the Valkyries, then again, and again. Four weeks later, they’re sitting on 26 wins and riding a 12-game streak that ties a franchise record first set in 2012. It was set back when the team was the San Antonio Silver Stars and, yes, their star player was Becky Hammon.

You’d think that kind of symmetry would make her smile. Not quite. After an 81-75 win over the Dream, an interviewer asked her to evaluate her team’s defense, and Hammon didn’t sugarcoat: “I did not like our first half defense at all.” Holding an opponent to 19 in a quarter might thrill most coaches, but not one who keeps “teens” as the obvious goal. Finally, then, at halftime, she got what she wanted.

Las Vegas clamped down inside, as they slashed Atlanta’s 30 paint points in the first half to just 16 after the break. “Those little adjustments that they’re able to go out there and execute real time gives me a lot of confidence,” she said. You bet that verdict was real, as at a different moment, her star agreed. A’ja Wilson revealed the halftime cheat code in just two words: “Play better.”

She credited Brionna Jones for an early surge but knew the Aces had to choke off easy buckets: “heartbreakers,” as Wilson called them. “In the W, and the players that we play against, easy buckets are heartbreakers, because they’re so good at what they do. If you can make it difficult just a little bit, you can kind of win and go from there.” Message received. Atlanta led by two at the half, but by the end of the third quarter, they were staring up at a 13-point hole. In other words, Vegas’ defense woke up and absolutely flipped the entire game on its head, and they did it in style. Here’s how-

A’ja Wilson and the Aces Make It a Dozen

A’ja Wilson dropped 34 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against Atlanta. That game marked her 35th career outing with 30 or more points, which is the second-most in WNBA history. She is now trailing only Diana Taurasi, who has 54. It was also her 11th such game just this season. This singlehandedly puts her just one single game away from tying the single-season record that’s currently held by Maya Moore from 2014 and Jewell Loyd from 2023. And as if that wasn’t enough, Wilson also moved past Katie Smith into ninth place on the league’s all-time free throws list, with 1,441 makes.

Jackie Young was just as brilliant in her own historic way. She managed to put up 10 points, matched her career-high with 11 rebounds, and dished out 10 assists for her second triple-double of this season. It’s super rare, as only a handful of players in the entire history of the league have ever recorded multiple triple-doubles in one single campaign. The fact that Young is doing this while sharing the court with other stars like A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, and Jewell Loyd makes it even more incredible.

Speaking of that, both Chelsea Gray and Jewell Loyd scored 14 points each. They gave steady control to Vegas every time Atlanta tried to make a comeback. The Dream certainly didn’t make it easy; they came into the game red-hot, having won nine of their last 11 games, and they played with that same energy. Brionna Jones and Rhyne Howard each scored 19 points, and Allisha Gray added another 15 to keep Atlanta within striking distance the whole time.

But the final outcome of the season series tells the whole story: with this 81-75 victory, Vegas swept the Dream 3-0. They now have sole possession of second place in the WNBA standings with a 26-14 record. They are one game ahead of Atlanta (24-14) and still six games behind the league-leading Minnesota Lynx, who they are set to face next! Stay tuned for when that happens.