The Las Vegas Aces began this season not only without Kelsey Plum but also missing two vital assistant coaches, Natalie Nakase and Tyler Marsh. For Becky Hammon, hitting the midpoint of the season with a record below .500 was uncharted territory. Doubts started creeping in about whether those departures had derailed the Aces’ formula for success. Well, anyone who doubted them has had to eat their words. The Aces are now just one series away from securing their third championship under Becky Hammon, and Candace Parker had nothing but praise for the coach.

Parker, who won a championship in her final WNBA season playing under Hammon, was full of admiration for the Aces’ head coach and the way she adjusted her tactics throughout the series to keep Alyssa Thomas in check. “I’ll give it up to Becky Hammon though, because she is the chess adjustment master. I love the way that she guards Alyssa Thomas in that I think to some extent some teams overextend, like I think Minnesota overextended,” Parker said in the Post Moves podcast.

The first two games of the series showcased just how brilliant Becky Hammon really is as a coach. In Game 1, the Mercury controlled most of the action, but Hammon’s switch to a zone defense changed everything. The Aces held Phoenix to just 15 points in the fourth quarter on 33.3 percent shooting, ultimately sealing a narrow 3-point victory.

Game 2 followed a similar script, with the Mercury starting strong in the first quarter. Phoenix grabbed five offensive rebounds, shot 45.5 percent from the field, and scored 27 points. But Hammon rallied her players, saying, “At some point you have to do it. Let’s fix it now. Not wait till after the game or halftime.” From that moment on, the Aces took control, dominating the next three quarters and cruising to a 13-point victory.

Both games saw Hammon deploy the zone defense, clogging the middle and making it tough for Thomas to dictate the pace as she normally does. Even Candace Parker noted how the Mercury struggled to control the half-court, saying, “But the thing about Phoenix is they’re going to struggle in the half court against the Aces.”

For a player who racked up 81 points, 33 rebounds, and 38 assists in the four-game series against the Lynx–where their flat screen plays, described by Coach Reeve as the WNBA’s version of the “tush push,” were so deadly–Thomas struggled to have the same impact against the Aces. After missing crucial free throws in Game 1, she followed it up with her least productive outing of these playoffs in Game 2, finishing with just 10 points, six rebounds, and five assists.

Now, it would be unfair to say Thomas didn’t show up in Game 3. She was one assist short of what would have been her sixth career playoff triple-double. To put that into context, only Sheryl Swoopes and Courtney Vandersloot have reached that milestone in the playoffs, and both have only one. Yet even her brilliance wasn’t enough. A’ja Wilson’s buzzer-beating turnaround jumper gave the Las Vegas Aces the win, putting them up 3-0 and just one victory away from claiming the championship once again.

Regardless of how one-sided the finals have been, viewership is still hitting record highs…and we can’t really credit Caitlin Clark for this!

Las Vegas Aces- Phoenix Mercury series break viewership records

Not many expected these two teams to make it to the finals for a bunch of reasons. Yet here they are, defying the odds. Sure, it almost feels like we already know how this series will end, but the basketball these teams have served up so far has definitely kept the fans entertained.

According to ESPN, the first two games have become the most-watched WNBA Finals since 2000, averaging 1.5 million viewers across ABC and ESPN. For context, that’s just shy of the 1.54 million who tuned in to watch the Houston Comets face the New York Liberty on NBC and Lifetime back in 2000.

Game 1 drew a massive 1.9 million viewers on ESPN, up 62 percent from last year’s Minnesota Lynx vs. Liberty opener. That made it the most-watched Finals opener since the WNBA’s very first season in 1997, when a single-elimination Houston-Liberty game pulled in 2.8 million viewers on NBC. Game 2 kept the energy going, averaging 1.2 million viewers on ABC.

No team in WNBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a championship. Becky Hammon’s tactics have proven too tough for Coach Tibbetts to crack so far, and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he will. But there’s still no reason to throw in the towel–the Mercury have one last chance to turn the tide. Will they pull it off? Only time will tell.