Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson (22) celebrates after making a basket during the second half of a WNBA basketball game against the Washington Mystics at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Mandalay Bay Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023.
Published Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023 | 9:09 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023 | 10:28 p.m.
Kelsey Plum was having lunch on Wednesday when a woman who works at Enterprise approached her.
She approached the Aces guard at her table and said, "oh, my gosh, we cannot lose again."
"She was like, 'ugh, I'm sick of it!'" Plum recalled. "And I was like, 'you know? You're right."
Indirectly, the credit to the Aces avoiding their first three-game losing streak under coach Becky Hammon may have been because of that lunch conversation.
But it did help for the Aces to get back home after a four-game road trip and win 84-75 over the Washington Mystics at Michelob Ultra Arena on Thursday.
Coming off a 78-62 loss to the Mystics on Saturday and a 94-85 loss to the New York Liberty on Monday, the Aces got back to playing tenacious defense just long enough to make the plays when they counted.
A'ja Wilson led the way with 26 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, while Plum had a double-double of her own with 12 points and 10 assists to get the Aces (31-6) back into the win column.
"At the end of the day, when you win, you set an expectation for winning. When you do lose, especially the last couple of ways we lost, people don’t like it in Vegas," Plum said. "People respect winning, as they should."
Though, if you talk to the Aces, you'd think the world was ending.
"You would think we lost 15 in a row," Wilson said. "It feels like it. It really does."
That comes with the price of having the most wins in league history. The number of victories will likely increase from 31 over the final week of the regular season, and those two losses will cost the Aces from reaching the best winning percentage in league history (.900 by the 1998 Houston Comets).
But the Aces were looking for any form of positivity after looking flat in Washington and New York. Returning home, where they've lost just once in over a year, helped the cause.
Wilson scored 14 points in the first quarter and the Aces' defense found a rhythm early by holding the Mystics to 14 points of their own.
Just three Aces players scored in the first quarter — Wilson, Chelsea Gray with 6 points, and reserve guard Sydney Colson with two important baskets off the bench.
The 34-year-old Colson was the first guard off the bench thanks to her strong play in New York on Monday. Second-year guard Kierstan Bell was a healthy scratch.
Colson stole the ball at halfcourt and walked in for an layup with 1:25 remaining in the opening quarter, then capped the opening 10 minutes with a baseline jumper for a 10-point lead.
She had just those four points in seven minutes for the game, but they were minutes that didn't go unnoticed.
"Syd’s just a consummate pro. She’s a leader. She’s someone who’s always talking," Plum said. "I think she’s going to continue to be great for us."
The Aces led by as many as 13 in the first half, but the Mystics rallied behind the play of former MVP Elena Delle Donne, who led Washington with 17 points. The Mystics took their first lead, 54-53, with 2:15 left in the third.
Las Vegas answered with a 7-0 run to extend the lead to 60-54, and the Mystics couldn't complete another rally. Washington was held to 16 points in the fourth quarter and held to 38.9% shooting.
Gray scored eight points in the fourth quarter and finished with 21.
"We got tired of losing. We lost a lot of games just on the defensive side," Wilson said. "We rallied together and said we’re going to play together as a whole and execute, or we’re just going to continue to lose."
The magic number for the Aces to clinch the No. 1 seed in the WNBA playoffs is down to 3 with the Liberty idle on Thursday. The Liberty host the Connecticut Sun on Friday at Barclays Center, and the Aces are back home Saturday against the Seattle Storm.
Hammon said earlier in the season that it would be good for the Aces to face some adversity to offset the historic pace of winning.
With Game 1 of the first round here on Sept. 13, perhaps that couldn't have come at a better time.
"Us going through this now is going to help us in the playoffs," Wilson said. "We have to go through these roller coasters of games and weathering the storm, and just figuring it out.
"It’s a game at the end of the day and we take it to the chin of what we need to do, and sometimes when things are about winning and it’s good, no one really talks about the bad stuff. We still have stuff to learn. Sometimes it takes us to take that L and go through some adversity."
Danny Webster can be reached at 702-259-8814 or [email protected]. Follow Danny on Twitter at twitter.com/DannyWebster21.
