After the Olympic break, the Las Vegas Aces hoped to play its best game against the WNBA’s best team, the New York Liberty.
Despite a strong start on Saturday, the Aces ultimately fell 79-67. The team didn’t have much time to dwell on the poor result as they were right back at the Michelob Ultra Arena Sunday against the Sparks.
Behind a 34-point performance from A’ja Wilson, the Aces defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 87-71.
After putting up 13 points in the first half, the Aces needed all of Wilson’s 21 second-half points to pull ahead.
“I want to win really bad. I like to show that through my game. I want people to see the passion from me and my team,” said Wilson postgame. “Its really hard to win in this league and I just go into another phase in my mind where by any means necessary I want to win.”
Coming off of a 35-point loss to the Liberty, the 6-20 Sparks came out strong in the first half. Led by Kia Nurse’s 10 points, the Sparks never trailed by more than seven.
The game continued to be close until the end of the third quarter when the Aces went on an 8-3 run to close out the quarter to push the lead to 12 points.
Towards the end of the quarter, things got chippy as Wilson took a technical foul against the Sparks’ Dearica Hamby. Hamby was playing her first game in Vegas since filing a discrimination lawsuit against the Aces and the WNBA.
Throughout the game, Hamby was receiving boos every time she touched the ball and was visibly getting frustrated offensively as she only shot 25% from the field.
As the second half went on, Kelsey Plum added to Wilson’s point barrage with a 21-point performance. Plum finished the game 5-8 from three-point range.
“We had six people in a different time zone for an extended period of time. To come back and play the best team in the league on a back-to-back I think we played well,” said head coach Becky Hammon.
The Aces improve to 17-9 and will move onto the Minnesota Lynx in back-to-back games on Wednesday and Friday night.
