Aces must regroup after Game 3 rout at Connecticut

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, Sept. 16, 2022 | 2 a.m.

The Las Vegas Aces haven’t lost three straight games all season, and Becky Hammon doesn’t intend to let them do it now.

The Aces came into Thursday’s Game 3 of the WNBA Finals with a 2-0 lead, looking to close out the Connecticut Sun to earn the franchise’s first championship. That mission failed in spectacular fashion as the Sun scored at will and thrashed visiting Las Vegas, 105-76.

After the game, Hammon didn’t take it easy on her squad, calling out her team for a “soft” performance with a title at stake.

Now the Aces have to wait another two days before their next opportunity to clinch in Game 4 on Sunday.

Hammon isn’t going to spend that time harping on X’s and O’s.

“I’m not going to have to say much,” Hammon said. “Go back, look at ways we can exploit what they’re doing, and go throw the ball up [for Game 4]. This game was about physicality and mental toughness, and they smoked us on it. Period.”

Connecticut played like a desperate team from the opening tip in Game 3, and Las Vegas did not match that intensity. The Sun shot 82.4% in the first quarter, slicing up the Las Vegas defense on 14-of-17 shooting to take a 34-19 lead after the first 10 minutes.

The lead ballooned to 23 points midway through the second quarter, and though Las Vegas was able to chip away and get within single digits in the second half, the Sun never lost control. Connecticut forward Alyssa Thomas posted 16 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists to record the first triple-double in WNBA Finals history, and six Sun players finished with double figures in scoring.

As a team, Connecticut shot a blistering 55.8% from the field as the Aces offered little resistance.

“Once they had a 20-point lead, we were just trading baskets with them,” Hammon said. “That’s not going to work, mathematically. And we couldn’t stop them. Plain and simple. Our defense couldn’t stop them tonight.”

League MVP A’ja Wilson got off to a fast start, staking the Aces to a quick 4-0 lead by scoring the first two baskets, but she had trouble defending the paint and competing for rebounds.

Wilson finished with four boards (three defensive) while the Sun pulled down 10 offensive rebounds as a team.

Connecticut enjoyed an advantage of 18-4 in second-chance points.

“It was just energy,” Wilson said when asked how Las Vegas let the game get away. “Energy-wise, we lacked that. I’ll take full accountability for that. We lacked energy. At the end of the day, you need that coming into a road game like this.”

Not even maestro point guard Chelsea Gray could save the Aces in Game 3. The veteran has enjoyed an extraordinary playoff run, and she did get hot in the third quarter, making three straight 3-pointers to give Las Vegas some life, but the Connecticut defense harassed her into a relatively pedestrian line of 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting.

The Sun sent extra defenders at Gray at every opportunity and forced her into an uncharacteristic four turnovers, which Hammon attributed more to attitude than execution.

“[The Sun] didn’t do a whole lot different, they just did it harder,” Hammon said. “They’ve been blitzing us the whole series, they just did it harder. And we responded soft.”

Now as the series shifts to Game 4, the Aces find themselves in a precarious position: Match Connecticut’s energy, or prepare to trudge back to Las Vegas for a do-or-die Game 5.

The players understand they’ll have to dig deep. Another unfocused, lackluster effort is not going to be good enough.

Kelsey Plum vowed that the Aces will respond.

“They got to the 50-50 balls,” Plum said. “Physicality-wise, we didn’t match that. The energy that they played with, specifically Alyssa Thomas, she beat us to a lot of those balls. That’s on us and that will be fixed for Sunday.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.