‘Nothing has been won tonight’: Aces lose Game 2, face elimination

The Aces are at risk of being eliminated from the WNBA playoffs for the first time since 2021 after losing Game 2 of their semifinal series against the New York Liberty 88-84 on Tuesday at Barclays Center in New York.

Despite the predicament, coach Becky Hammon and point guard Chelsea Gray still mustered humor after a defeat that went down to the wire.

With the back-to-back champions now down 2-0 in the best-of-five series, and Game 3 set for 6:30 p.m. Friday at Michelob Ultra Arena, Hammon offered a joke when she was reminded that she called the matchup “do or die” after falling 87-77 in Game 1 on Sunday.

“Did I say it was a must-win? I was lying,” she said. “I was trying to bring the drama.”

The Aces definitely brought the drama Tuesday, leading by eight points in the first quarter, then falling behind by 10 points in the third, only to tie the game at 81 on an Alysha Clark 3-pointer with 1:31 remaining.

The Aces had a chance to tie or take the lead, trailing 84-82 with 10.1 seconds left, but they turned it over on an out-of-bounds call on an inbounds pass that the Liberty successfully challenged. New York then closed out the game at the free-throw line.

Three-time MVP A’ja Wilson led the Aces with 24 points and seven rebounds.

Sabrina Ionescu had 24 points for the Liberty, recording 11 in the pivotal fourth quarter.

No WNBA team has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit, just like no team has won three consecutive WNBA championships since the Houston Comets won the league’s first four championships from 1997 to 2000 — a feat the Aces are looking to replicate.

Gray doesn’t mind the unfriendly odds.

“I love being in the history books,” she said. “Might as well kind of start there.”

It was the Aces’ fifth straight loss to the Liberty this season, but a more serious Hammon emphasized that the Aces aren’t waving the white flag yet.

“We have neither lost nor won a championship. Nothing has been won tonight,” she said. “Let there be no doubt, we’re in for a war.”

Stokes out

Like in Game 1, the Liberty’s size left the Aces at a disadvantage.

Hammon shifted the starting lineup, opting to substitute 6-foot-3-inch center Kiah Stokes for 5-11 veteran forward Clark.

Stokes went down with 9.5 seconds remaining in the third quarter after bumping heads with Liberty center Jonquel Jones. After leaving the game with what the Aces reported as a “potential concussion,” Stokes did not return.

Clark rose to the occasion, scoring 13 points, but the Liberty outscored the Aces 44-24 in the paint and outrebounded them 35-29 as Hammon sat 6-4 centers Megan Gustafson and Queen Egbo on the bench for the second time this series.

Hammon said pregame that Gustafson didn’t see the floor in Game 1 because “it’s a really fast game,” but would likely get minutes Tuesday. She apparently changed her mind after tipoff.

Layup line

Hammon said the amount of layups the Aces allowed the Liberty was “obscene.” But she’d already demonstrated her displeasure with the Aces’ interior defense early in the second quarter when she called two timeouts in less than a minute as the Liberty came within a point of the Aces’ 27-26 lead.

Hammon could be seen yelling expletives about the layups in the huddle. Kayla Thornton notched another one for the Liberty as soon as play resumed.

The Aces saw Breanna Stewart score 20 first-half points against them in Game 1, and they limited her to 15 points Tuesday.

Their start was better on the offensive end as well, as they opened a 27-22 lead after the first quarter thanks to Gray’s 10 points in the period. That came after Gray recorded just four points in Game 1.

Tiffany Hayes scored 10 points off the bench, including six in less than four minutes in the second quarter to help the Aces briefly regain the lead, a turnaround from her two points in Game 1.

That said, the small improvements didn’t matter much to Hammon, who fixated on the Aces giving up 20 points off turnovers, all but two of which came in the first half.

While the Aces also committed 21 fouls, Hammon emphasized ball security, saying she wasn’t mad at the referees or the Liberty. She felt that the Aces beat the Aces.

“I don’t think it’s close if we didn’t keep passing it to the other team,” she said.

Contact Callie Fin at clawsonfreeman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.