The Las Vegas Aces and reigning league MVP A’ja Wilson may be in trouble.
The New York Liberty, thanks to another strong performance from Breanna Stewart and a clutch kill from Sabrina Ionescu, fended off the Aces down the stretch to earn an 88-84 victory in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series Tuesday night at the Barclays Center in New York.
That, after a dominant win in Game 1, pushed the Liberty to a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series. A win in Las Vegas on Friday would give them a series sweep against the team that has dominated the league in recent years across the board and beat them in the WNBA Finals last fall.
Teams are a perfect 18-0 in the postseason when leading a series 2-0. The Aces are also the first defending champion to fall 0-2 in a series.
in their Game 1 victory, finished just short of a triple-double in Liberty’s victory on Tuesday. He had 15 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the victory despite making just 5 of 15 field goals. Ionescu led Liberty with 24 points, 11 of which came in the fourth quarter, and nine rebounds on 50% shooting from the field.
After trailing for most of the contest, the Aces came back to make it a late fourth quarter game. They tied it several times down the stretch, first after Alysha Clark hit a huge 3-pointer with about 90 seconds left.
That set up an exciting finish, with both teams going back and forth most of the rest of the way. But it was Ionescu who put Liberty back on top after Clark’s shot with a perfect, contested 15-footer.
Liberty then won a challenge at the other end after the ball went out of bounds from Aces guard Kelsey Plum, giving them possession again with just 10.5 seconds left. That led to Ionescu returning to the free throw line to ultimately seal the four-point victory.
The Aces got off to a much better start after their struggles in Game 1 and took a slight lead after the first 10 minutes thanks to 10 quick points from Chelsea Gray in the first quarter. That advantage, however, simply did not hold. Liberty led by six at halftime thanks to a great 9-0. The Liberty also held Las Vegas to just 13 points in the period.
Although they fell by 10 points almost immediately after the break, the Aces slowly made a final push late in the third. They cut the deficit to just four, and Jackie Young dropped nine of her 17 game points during the period to keep them in place.
That led to the Aces’ fourth-quarter and late Liberty comeback, which sealed their victory and put them one game away from returning to the WNBA Finals.
Wilson led the Aces with 24 points and seven rebounds after going 11 of 18 from the field. Young added five rebounds and three assists to go with his 17 points, and Gray finished with 14 points and seven assists. Jonquel Jones added 14 points and eight rebounds for the Liberty, in addition to a combined 39 points from Stewart and Ionescu. Courtney Vandersloot also added 12 points off the bench.
Game three of the series is scheduled for Friday night in Las Vegas.
This post will be updated with more information soon.