Ask A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young to sit in front of a camera instead of a basketball hoop, and the result usually looks less like an interview than two longtime friends trying not to laugh. They know each other’s habits, finish each other’s stories, and rarely miss a chance to poke fun at one another. Ajax is what the duo is called. 

Seven seasons together have erased much of the conversation between them. What’s left is instinct. One slips into the lane, the other drifts toward open space. A help defender comes, and the next pass arrives almost before the defense realizes it’s needed. And on Friday night against New York, that familiarity turned into another piece of WNBA history.

The duo of A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young became the first to achieve ten repeats of iconic scoring. Playing against the New York Liberty on July 31, both veterans combined for 62 points, making it the tenth time each has scored 25+ points in the same game. They are the first duo in WNBA history to achieve this feat.

Reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson scored 33 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists, shooting 50% from the field, and Jackie Young scored 29 points, making seven of her 11 field goal attempts, while logging two rebounds and nine assists. espnW posted about this feat on their X feed.

New York had every reason to think it owned this matchup. The Liberty beat Las Vegas 87-76 on June 23, then beat the Aces again a week later, 93-85, in the Commissioner’s Cup championship. They walked into Michelob ULTRA Arena on a three-game winning streak, having just held off Los Angeles 113-109 two nights earlier.

The Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas witnessed end-to-end action as Breanna Stewart tried everything she could to keep Liberty in the game. She had 26 points and 11 rebounds on the night, while Pauline Astier added 19 points for the Liberty and Sabrina Ionescu had 15. It was not WNBA All-Star MVP Jonquel Jones’ night as she finished with just eight points on 2-for-11 shooting.

But Wilson finished with 33 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, shooting 11-of-22 from the field and 10-of-11 from the line. Young matched her with 29 points on 7-of-11 shooting, adding two rebounds and nine assists. She also made all 12 of her free throws, a career high, with the attempt total matching her previous career best. Six of those makes came in the final 16 seconds alone: she hit a pair with 15.7 seconds left, stole a Pauline Astier inbound pass six-tenths of a second later, made two more after being fouled, then closed it out from the line with 6 seconds remaining.

It was a hot start that set the tone. Young scored 15 points in the first quarter alone on three 3-pointers, a season high for her in a single period, and had 22 by halftime on 7-of-9 shooting as Las Vegas built a 52-44 lead. New York went scoreless over the final 2:35 of the second quarter. Wilson, who had taken just eight shots in the first half, exploded for 18 points in the third quarter on 8-of-10 shooting to keep the margin comfortable.

New York wasn’t done, though. A technical foul on Liberty coach Chris DeMarco opened the fourth quarter, and after Young converted the free throw, New York answered with an 11-2 run that briefly cut the deficit to a single point at 83-82 on a Breanna Stewart pull-up. Chelsea Gray broke the Aces’ field-goal drought to open the quarter, then buried a go-ahead 3-pointer with 3:30 left to make it 95-87. New York scored six straight to pull within two, and Wilson answered with a driving layup and a free throw before Young iced it from the line. Gray fouled out with 20.8 seconds remaining, finishing with 16 points, three rebounds and four assists; she’s now recorded at least four assists in 16 straight games, the longest active streak in the league.

Aces coach Becky Hammon credited the ball movement for the hot shooting. “I mean, it always helps when the three balls are going in. But I thought Jackie got off to some really good rhythm shots,” Hammon said. “We had 25 assists tonight, which means we’re probably taking a good amount of decent quality looks. So you’re always going to shoot a better percentage when you’re taking good quality looks.”

The Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas witnessed end-to-end action as Breanna Stewart tried everything she could to keep the Liberty in the game. She finished with 26 points, 11 rebounds, three steals and a block, and has now scored at least 15 points in 14 consecutive games, matching the longest such run of her career. Rookie Pauline Astier added 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting with four assists and two steals, becoming just the seventh rookie in Liberty franchise history to reach 100 made field goals. Sabrina Ionescu chipped in 15 points, five assists and four rebounds, while it was not WNBA All-Star MVP Jonquel Jones’ night. she finished with 8 points, seven rebounds and five assists on just 2-for-11 shooting. Rebecca Allen set season highs with 13 points and three made 3-pointers, and Marine Fauthoux scored 9 points off the bench.

Liberty coach Chris DeMarco pointed to a familiar culprit after the loss. “Yeah, I mean, they hit some open ones and then they hit some tough ones, but you can’t take everything away,” DeMarco said. “We know that, and they got hot a little bit, and obviously we have to do a better job with our shot challenges, and probably earlier than that, probably just pursuit and trying to get connected and not stress our bigs out.”

Las Vegas shot 92.6% from the free-throw line (25-of-27), a season high, and made 13 of 28 from deep. New York, though, dominated the paint and the glass, outscoring the Aces 50-34 inside and 15-2 on second-chance points, and outrebounding them 34-26 overall, the Liberty didn’t allow a single Aces offensive rebound in the first half before Las Vegas shot 61.1% after the break to hold on.

The game witnessed a controversial call in the dying moments

A controversial no-call in the dying seconds became the talking point of the Liberty’s loss. Breanna Stewart insisted it was an error by the on-court officials. The sequence unfolded right in front of her with 17.9 seconds left in the fourth quarter: A’ja Wilson lost control of the ball, it sailed out of bounds, and the arena was stunned when officials waved it an Aces ball. Stewart’s arm was out but never touched it. New York had already used its coach’s challenge earlier in the game, leaving no way to get a review, with the Aces up just three points at the time, a reversed call could have changed the outcome entirely.

The loss dampened what was otherwise a milestone night for Stewart, who passed Candace Parker for 10th on the WNBA’s career scoring list on a cutting layup with 8:58 left in the third quarter, pushing her career total to 6,588 points, past Parker’s 6,574. Incidentally, Parker was on the live broadcast when Stewart got there.

Wilson, drafted by the Aces back in 2018, is showing no signs of slowing down. She became the WNBA’s first four-time MVP in 2025 and remains the de facto two-way anchor of this Aces team, averaging 26.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.6 steals per game this season on 53.3% shooting, with a team-leading 2.0 blocks per game. Friday’s win was also her 31st career game with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds, the most in WNBA history, and her 14th double-double of the season. She has scored in double figures in 51 straight games, a league-leading streak, and is riding a nine-game run of 20-point outings, the second-longest active streak in the league.

Jackie Young entered the league a year after Wilson as the No. 1 overall pick in 2019, and the two have since formed the backbone of an Aces dynasty that has won three league titles, in 2022, 2023 and 2025. Young, a three-time All-Star, is averaging 17.5 points, 4.2 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 1.0 steals per game this season with the team’s best assist-to-turnover ratio at 3.1. She’s also recorded six games this season with at least nine assists and no more than two turnovers, the most such games of any player in the league.

This isn’t a one-off, either. The duo put up an identical 62-point combined night against the Dallas Wings back in July 2024 (Wilson with 28, Young with 34), and did it again just eight days before this Liberty game, when Wilson scored 38 and Young added 24 in a win over the Washington Mystics. They’ve made a habit of these nights during the Aces’ championship stretch, too, most memorably in Game 1 of the 2023 WNBA Finals, when Young scored 26 and Wilson added 19 to help Las Vegas seize control of the series early.

Las Vegas played without Kierstan Bell (right leg injury) and Cheyenne Parker-Tyus (concussion protocol); New York was missing Leonie Fiebich (left foot injury) and Satou Sabally (concussion protocol). The announced crowd of 10,500 marked the 60th consecutive sellout at Michelob ULTRA Arena.

The Aces improved to 20-8 and the Liberty fell to 16-13. Las Vegas now turns to a five-game road trip that opens Saturday at the Chicago Sky, with a 10 a.m. PT tip-off at Wintrust Arena televised on CBS, while New York heads to Phoenix the same day. If Wilson and Young keep stacking nights like this one, the Aces’ path back to defending their title runs straight through whatever chemistry these two have left to spend.