LAS VEGAS – Throughout the most up-and-down season of her brief tenure with the Las Vegas Aces, head coach Becky Hammon kept coming back to a simple overarching reason for the struggles. On the verge of an early elimination in the WNBA semifinals, she took advantage again.
The two-time reigning champion Aces lacked the edge needed to win it again.
“The feeling was different than the jump,” Hammon said after the Aces lost Game 2 in New York. “And that’s why repeating three times is difficult. Let’s be realistic. The whole league has been angry for the last month, and my players are in commercials and this and that, and they’re fucking celebrities and you get distracted. That’s why it’s difficult. Because human nature is distracting.”
The Aces’ season could come to an end Friday night in Game 3 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas. The New York Liberty, who have yet to lose a game to Las Vegas this season, are going for the sweep in what was expected to be a thrilling rematch of the WNBA Finals that spanned five full games.
Hammon, who entered the series 18-2 in the playoffs and 2-for-2 in championships during her tenure as head coach, sees the advantage in New York. The Liberty had to watch the rival Aces, playing without two starters, win on their home court last year in Game 4. They blew a chance in the final seconds to force a Game 5.
“I’m sure at the end of the day they feel like something was stolen from them,” Hammon said after Game 2. The Aces did not practice or speak to the media Thursday.
Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello, a self-described “glass half full” person, turned that pain into a metaphor about scars healing and getting stronger. It’s what the Liberty have taken advantage of all season on their way to the number one spot the Aces held for two years.
“Becky is out there trying to (figure out) how she’s going to motivate her team,” Brondello said before Liberty’s practice in Las Vegas on Thursday. “But I don’t think we need that motivation because we remember what it feels like. It’s just remembering (and) remembering that that was last year. Now we are a much better team. Don’t let that feeling weigh you down, use it as motivation and remember what it looks like when we play really well and the right way.”
The Liberty organization, as well as many of its players, are eagerly pursuing their first WNBA titles. Jonquel Jones is 0-3 in the finals. Sabrina Ionescu, who starred with Aces forward A’ja Wilson in a CarMax commercial, never won in college and the COVID-19 pandemic took away her last chance to reach an NCAA Final Four in 2020. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, the 2020 Improved Player winner, is a former second-round pick who is often overlooked in a league where most never make long runs.
Breanna Stewart, a four-time NCAA champion, won a WNBA title with Seattle in 2018 but didn’t get a chance to repeat when she tore her Achilles tendon overseas the following April. After winning in 2020, the 2021 Storm lost to a hot Phoenix team in Brondello’s final season in the desert when the format was single-elimination in the second round.
Trying to repeat in the pros, he said, is different than doing it in college.
“These series are physically exhausting, but also mentally exhausting,” Stewart said at Thursday’s practice. “It’s like a game of chess.”
Courtney Vandersloot’s Chicago Sky team won the 2021 title against Phoenix in a rare matchup between 5th and 6th seeds. All four standout starters, including Vandersloot, re-signed in the offseason to elevate the Sky from 2021 underdogs to legitimate repeat title contenders.
“I think, one, you’re the one being chased, right?” Vandersloot said at Thursday’s practice. “The most important thing is that everyone wants to beat you. And I think another obstacle is relying on things that worked last year (and) may not work this year. You feel like you have the answer, the plan, because you did it last year and it won’t necessarily be the same next year.”
The Houston Comets are the only WNBA team to win three titles. It was a completely different era when they won the first four league titles. Three franchises have done it five times in the NBA. The last ones were Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal Los Angeles Lakers in 2000-02. Three-peats are few and far between in any professional sport and almost non-existent in the last two decades.
“That’s what great teams do, being able to repeat or win multiple times, being able to find what works best next time,” Vandersloot said.
Aces guard Chelsea Gray understood this in the preseason.
“No year has been the same as far as winning a championship, so you start building those habits from Day 1 of training camp,” Gray said on a video call in May. “And I think the rest takes care of itself. “You just take it one day at a time and don’t look too far into the future.”
After the Game 2 loss, Gray described the advantage as the way they hit the ground, box well enough so the opponent doesn’t touch the ball, show swagger after scoring a shot, and provide energy all around. Yes, she believes she can be caught midway through the playoffs.
Time to find him is either dwindling or what’s on the horizon is an early offseason for the first time in Hammon’s tenure.