A’ja Wilson collapsed beneath the basket at Michelob Ultra Arena with tears flowing, ingraining an image in the minds of Las Vegas Aces’ fans and players at the end of last season.
Aces’ 2022 Playoffs
The final buzzer had just sounded on the decisive Game 5 of the WNBA’s semifinals on October 8, and the Phoenix Mercury had eliminated the Aces 87-84. One year after winning the MVP and making the WNBA Finals, Wilson was so inconsolable, teammates had to help her up and into the locker room.
Wilson has since called it the most painful loss of her career. It hurt more, she says, than being swept by the Seattle Storm for the championship in 2020.
“It was just a bad taste in my mouth,” the Aces’ star tells the Weekly. “I was present in the moment, but it wasn’t enough.”
Wilson stewed over the loss for the rest of the year before moving on in January and setting her sights on overcoming it this season. She might have her best chance yet to bring a title to Las Vegas this year, with the Aces entering the postseason as the No. 1 overall seed.
Wilson concedes she’s not totally over feeling like she came up short in past years, but that’s a natural sensation for the face of a franchise as successful as the Aces. The team has made the postseason in four straight seasons—they last missed the playoffs in Wilson’s rookie year—and each of the past three runs has provided a lesson.
“[The loss to Phoenix] was very hard for me, but I geared it in my offseason to make sure my teammates don’t feel the way I felt on that court,” Wilson says. “I wanted to make sure I could be there and show myself, so my teammates don’t have to feel like I did after Game 5.”
First-round Matchup
LAS VEGAS ACES (No. 1 seed, 26-10) vs. PHOENIX MERCURY (No. 8 seed, 15-21)
(Best-of-three series)
Game 1 Aces 79, Mercury 63
Game 2 August 20, 6 p.m., Michelob Ultra Arena. Tickets: $10-$100, aces.wnba.com/tickets. TV: ESPN.
Game 3 (if nec) August 23, time TBD, Phoenix’s Footprint Arena
About the Mercury
Phoenix defeated Las Vegas in five games to advance to the WNBA Finals last year, but this year’s Mercury team has undergone major roster upheaval. They’ve played the entire season without center Brittney Griner, who’s been wrongfully detained in Russia, according to the U.S. State Department, and has been sentenced to a nine-year prison sentence. Phoenix’s other two stars have recently been away from the team, too. Leading scorer Skylar Diggins-Smith left the Mercury with two games left in the regular season for personal reasons and will not return in the playoffs. And guard Diana Taurasi, who has been sitting out with a quad strain, will be re-evaluated to see if she can play in the postseason.
WNBA championship future odds (at Boyd Sports, going into the playoffs)
Las Vegas +175 (i.e. risking $100 to win $175), Chicago +230, Connecticut +380, Seattle 6-to-1, Washington 11-to-1, Dallas 55-to-1, New York 80-to-1, Phoenix 100-to-1.
There’s still work to be done, but the Aces are on target to complete a five-year process with the trophy they crave.
The building blocks were in place from the start. Las Vegas finished 14-20 after relocating here—and renaming themselves from the San Antonio Stars—with a tandem of Kelsey Plum and Dearica Hamby laying a winning foundation. The pillar of the team’s new core arrived months earlier, when the Aces selected the then-21-year-old Wilson out of the University of South Carolina with the No. 1 pick of the 2018 WNBA Draft.
Wilson couldn’t quite push the Aces into the playoffs, but she swept all 39 votes to win the Rookie of the Year award after averaging nearly 21 points and eight rebounds on 46% shooting, while blocking 1.6 shots per night.
The Aces tasted playoff experience for the first time in 2019 off a 21-13 regular season, winning a one-game conference semifinal over the Chicago Sky before falling to the eventual champion Washington Mystics.
Las Vegas took a big step in 2020, finishing 18-4 in a season contested in a COVID-19 bubble in Bradenton, Florida, and reaching the finals before getting stomped by Seattle.
Then last year, with a star-studded team featuring Wilson, Plum, Hamby, Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray and Liz Cambage, the Aces finished 24-8, posting the second-best record in the league.
But COVID still impacted Las Vegas a great deal. Cambage never regained her form after twice contracting the virus and was severely outmatched by Brittney Griner in the Phoenix series.
Las Vegas didn’t have the one-two punch to outduel Griner and guard Diana Taurasi.
Wilson still blames herself, particularly for an 87-60 Game 3 loss in Phoenix. She shot 2-for-14 from the field in the blowout defeat, finishing with just eight points to go with six rebounds.
“It felt like we didn’t give it enough,” Wilson says. “There were so many things we could’ve corrected in our situation that we didn’t capitalize on, and it didn’t sit right with me.”
The Aces moved on from Laimbeer after the season and tapped Becky Hammon to be the final piece to the championship puzzle. Regarded as one of the best ever to play in the WNBA—last year, she was named to the league’s anniversary team celebrating its all-time top 25 players—Hammon spent nine seasons learning from the winningest coach in NBA history, Gregg Popovich, as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs.
From afar, Hammon considered potential ways to improve the Aces, particularly an improved defense. Popovich’s offenses were always elite during the Spurs’ run of five NBA titles, but above all, his teams prided themselves on their defensive prowess. That’s what Hammon wanted to instill first and foremost.
“Defensively, [we put] some rules in place, where it’s very clear where the accountability line is,” Hammon says. “I think when players get confused, and when it’s hard to hold people accountable, there’s gray area. You’re not really sure what you’re doing.
“[Now, we have a] very clear, stated objective within the pick-and-roll, within post defense, schematically, personnel-wise, very clear role definition. They go out there and they do it or they don’t, but I can at least hold them accountable.”
After the loss to Phoenix, Wilson refused to watch basketball for a while. She didn’t watch the Mercury ultimately fall to the Chicago Sky in the WNBA Finals, when longtime star Candace Parker claimed her second career title.
Looking back, Wilson says there were moments throughout last season where she wasn’t as locked in as she should have been. That hasn’t been the case in 2022. She’s favored to win the MVP award, but what she really wants is for the Aces to get it done as a team.
“This year, I wanted to make sure that I was present at all costs, both sides of the basketball, so they know they can trust me,” Wilson says.
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