Graney: Aces have no trouble focusing amid all the blowouts

Things haven’t been that dominant for the Aces yet this season, but it’s close. It has, for the most part, been a layup short of compete supremacy.

They are 13-1 and look every bit the part, a defending WNBA champion rarely challenged thus far. Only five games have been decided by single digits.

“It’s an every-day discipline, an every-day habit,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “We work on that a lot. Whether we’re playing great teams or marginal teams, you always have to be who you are.”

This is them so far: The Aces have a point differential of plus-215, best in league history through 14 games according to ESPN Stats & Info. They’re also the first team to win all but one game through a season’s first 14 since Minnesota in 2017.

The Lynx won the title that season.

The Aces look every bit as capable of repeating right now.

Silly debate?

We could — should — know more about the Aces when the New York Liberty visit Michelob Ultra Arena on Thursday night. It’s the first regular-season meeting between the two teams most believe will fight it out for a championship this year.

Connecticut, which handed the Aces their only loss, is here Saturday.

Yep. Two biggies.

It might seem a silly debate: Can you remain as sharp and focused as you need to be when winning so easily most nights? Is this really a challenge for a side so talented as the Aces?

Do you need a higher number of nail-biters to prepare for those that should come during playoff time?

Great teams, great players, have been through enough close games to understand how to react in such tight instances. If you’re this good, you’re this good. Hammon, however, likes the idea of sweating things down the stretch.

“I’d rather have some growth pains at the end of the day,” she said. “If we drop a game in June, it doesn’t hurt that bad. If we drop a game in September or October, it hurts a lot more. You need those growth pains.”

Her point: You can’t simulate such moments in practice. You can’t react as if there are thousands of folks in the stands and a game plan isn’t working and shots aren’t falling. You can’t duplicate the emotional and pressure-filled situation in the same manner.

“I don’t mind close games,” Hammon said. “It shouldn’t be easy. There should be some hard stuff along the way.”

She hasn’t changed her way of coaching no matter the score. She’s as consistent as sweltering days in July. Players know what they’re going to get, and you can’t give a better compliment to the person in charge.

There is no wavering from her. No mixed messages.

It’s always the same: No matter who the opponent, what the score, in which situation a game exists, the Aces are playing the Aces. It’s their identity, this idea that focusing on their strengths and weakness instead of what an opponent might be doing will most always create success for this particular team.

Never let up

“It’s about the foundation we lay down here and our system,” All-Star forward A’ja Wilson said. “If we do things the right way and come to work locked in, we’re very hard to beat. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing against — what do we bring, how do we feel inside, who do we want to be? The score is going to be what it’s going to be. Out identity matters most.”

It’s a point Hammon constantly stresses, no matter how much things might get out of hand. She’ll just as easily call timeout and talk about bad defensive rotations with her team up big as she would in a tie game.

“It’s easy to remain focused because we know we’ll never slack off based on how we’re coached,” Wilson said. “There should never be any letup.”

I say win every game by 20 if you can. And of you can’t, adopt such an identity.

A winning one.

Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter