Aces begin their quest for rare 3-peat against Storm
The 2002 Los Angeles Lakers. The 2000 New York Yankees. The 2000 Houston Comets. The 1998 Chicago Bulls, and the 1993 Bulls.
Those are the last five major professional American sports teams to win three championships in a row. It’s a feat that cements dynasties and opens conversations about who are the greatest teams of all time.
The Aces may already be in that echelon. They’re eight wins away from slamming the door on any debate.
The quest for a three-peat begins Sunday when the Aces, winners of nine of 10 to end the season, open the WNBA playoffs as the No. 4 seed and take on the Seattle Storm at Michelob Ultra Arena in a best-of-three series.
“I really like the direction we’re heading in at this point in the season,” coach Becky Hammon said. “If I had to pick a time to play well, it’d be at the end of the season. Not the beginning or the middle. We want to be playing our best basketball. Right now, that’s what it’s looking like.”
The road to the WNBA Finals the past two seasons went through Las Vegas. There was no question in either of those years that the Aces were the best team in the league.
Last year, especially, was no contest. The Aces won a league-record 34 games and lost once in the playoffs — Game 3 of the Finals against the New York Liberty — to put a stamp on the greatest season in WNBA history.
What lies ahead is their greatest challenge yet.
The Aces won 26 games the year of their first championship. That was good for the best mark in the league.
They finished with 27 wins this season, and yet they finished fourth in the standings.
The top-seeded Liberty (32-8), Minnesota Lynx (30-10) and Connecticut Sun (28-12) finished ahead of the Aces (27-13). (The league moved from a 36-game schedule to 40 in 2023.)
Gray’s return crucial
A 6-6 start didn’t help the Aces’ cause. They played those first 12 games without point guard Chelsea Gray, who was still recovering from a foot injury she suffered at the end of that Game 3 against New York last October.
Gray returned on June 19 — against the Storm in a 94-83 win — and the Aces finished 21-7 the rest of the way
“If we defend, we’re really hard to beat,” Gray said that night. “It starts on that end of the floor, and we can just go into transition.”
Gray, the 2022 Finals MVP, saw a dip in her numbers this season — her 8.6 points and 4.9 assists were her lowest averages since 2016 and 2017, respectively — but her return stabilized the Aces.
The Aces were still scoring at a ridiculous rate, 86.8 points per game, when Gray was out. But defense, their calling card, was nowhere to be found. They gave up 85.7 points, and opponents shot 39.3 percent from 3-point range.
Once Gray returned, that 3-point percentage dropped to 32 percent, and the Aces gave up 78.9 points per game.
It helped that the Aces got back their straw that stirs the drink. If that’s the case, A’ja Wilson is the bartender.
‘A rare player’
Wilson has never been shy about wanting to be one of the greatest players ever. The one way to get higher on the mountaintop was to win championships.
Wilson was named the WNBA’s MVP for the third time Sunday and became the first unanimous MVP since Cynthia Cooper-Dyke in 1997. She followed up a should-have-been MVP campaign last year with one of the best seasons the WNBA has ever seen. She scored a league-high 26.9 points per game, grabbed 11.9 rebounds per game and blocked a career-high 2.6 shots per game.
“That is a rare feat to be dominant on both ends,” Hammon said. “That’s a rare player.”
A third straight championship would put her in that “GOAT” — greatest of all time — category.
Having that confidence comes with the territory. It comes with being the cover star of the NBA 2K25 video game, something she always wanted. It comes with the endorsements, especially the soon-to-be signature shoe.
It’s also the burden she carries of being who she is.
When Wilson became the first player to score 1,000 points in a season Sept. 15, the Aces’ social media shared her emotional speech to her teammates in the locker room.
"When I come into work and I see y'all, it changes my whole outlook on life, so I am so so so appreciative for y'all … I'm nothing without y'all and I'm so grateful. Thank you so much and I appreciate y'all. Never change." — @_ajawilson22 ✨ pic.twitter.com/uRX6KH51h0
— Las Vegas Aces (@LVAces) September 16, 2024
“There are days I hate being A’ja Wilson. I hate it,” she said. “But when I come into work and I see y’all smiling and I see y’all happy, it makes me who I am.”
This is the time of year, though, where Wilson is who she is.
If the Aces are to win a third title and be the sixth franchise in the last 31 years to three-peat, it will be on her again to deliver like she did the past two.
“It’s a whole new basketball you get a chance to play when it comes to playoffs,” Wilson said. “It doesn’t matter what number is by your team’s name. You just got to go out there and start playing your best basketball, and that’s what we’re trying to strive toward.”
Storm center out
Seattle will be short-handed in Game 1, as center Ezi Magbegor will not play due to a concussion.
The Storm have no timeline on Magbegor’s return. She suffered the injury Sept. 13 against the Dallas Wings.
Magbegor is Seattle’s leading rebounder at 8.0 per game and was going to be the Storm’s best chance to contain Wilson. She also averaged 11.7 points per game this season.
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.