Aces rally at The House to take Game 1 from Storm

Playing in the nightcap of the first day of the 2024 WNBA Playoffs, Las Vegas had to stage a comeback in order to take an early series advantage.

Serving as this year’s 4-5 matchup in the bracket, the Aces beat the Seattle Storm, 78-67, Sunday, Sept. 22 from the Michelob Ultra Arena. The win gives the back-to-back defending champions a 1-0 series lead in the best of three games.

“We just buckled down,” forward A’ja Wilson said. “Like I said, we understood the assignment and knew what it was going to take. I think we saw in the first half we saw this isn’t going to be easy and that this is the playoffs not a regular season game.”

Las Vegas will attempt to go for the sweep Tuesday, Sept. 24 from the same location as Seattle looks to stay alive. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

“The stuff that this team has been through, since I’ve been here this has been our most tumultuous season,” head coach Becky Hammon said. “Like I told them, ‘If we were going to crack and fold we would’ve done that about a month ago.’”

More than six minutes passed in the fourth quarter before the Storm scored their first and eventually their only points of the final 10-minute session. The Aces held their opponents without a field goal for the entire fourth quarter resulting in 12 misses.

“Defense,” Hammon said. “We came out a step slow, I have no idea why. Defensively and offensively. We looked like we were running in mud out there, a second or two late. I thought in the second half they just kind of buckled down. Once we get stops, we know we’re off to the races.”

In a tight defensive affair, Las Vegas went on a 6-0 start to the fourth quarter to flip a one-point hole into a five-point lead. Guard Kelsey Plum scored the first points of that run, serving as her way into the score column after a 0-for-6 start.

Wilson, who was named the league’s Most Valuable Player for the third time in her career earlier in the day, was a part of that run next as she reached the 20-point threshold.

Following a rough start to the game, Wilson erupted for 13 points in the third quarter on her way to 21 points with eight rebounds and five blocks.

“That first half was ugly, boy,” Wilson said. “That’s just the way the game goes, the Basketball Gods have a funny way of showing me sometimes you just have to get it out the mud.”

Guard Tiffany Hayes capped that 6-0 start to the fourth quarter with a basket on her way to 20 points on the night. She has now scored 20 points in back-to-back games and four times over the last 11 outings.

“Having a lot of experience plus being here surrounding with people with experience — lots of playoff experience, lots of winning experience,” she said. “I’m just grateful to be surrounded by that because even if I fall off the track a little bit I have them to pull me right back up.”

Hayes’ mother was also in attendance for Game 1 after having never having been on a flight previously.

It was a rough start to the game for Las Vegas as the team missed 10 of its first 11 shots from the floor. Overall, the club shot 2-for-18 from the field while falling behind by 11 points in the opening quarter.

“Maybe we were just analyzing the game too much and not just playing,” Hammon said. “At this point of the season you have to know one of our best plays has been no play, don’t call a play.”

Needing something different in order to stay within striking distance, guard Chelsea Gray put on a familiar Point Gawd performance along with fellow vet Alysha Clark. The pair connected several times during an 8-2 run early in the second quarter including a corner three and a driving layup by the latter.

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of trust that we’ve built in that locker room,” Hammon said. “I thought AC coming in especially in the second half with her defense — [Seattle’s Nneka Ogwumike] had 13 points at halftime and AC did a good job of coming in there and getting on the glass.

”There’s a lot of different people that I can call on and that I trust out there. They’ve just proven to me who they are so when it gets hard, I’m never hitting the panic mode — I might be hitting the angry mode but I’m never hitting the panic mode.”

That run would be expanded to 15-4 to briefly grant the home team the lead in the first half. Las Vegas went into halftime down four before making its game-changing turn of events in the third quarter.

“You can’t tell the secrets in the playoffs,” WIlson said of Hammon’s halftime speech. “We’ll tell y’all later.”