The Aces scored at will against a particularly inept Dallas defense.
There isn’t a whole lot any team in the WNBA can do to slow down A’ja Wilson, who came into Sunday’s game between her Las Vegas Aces (21-14) and the Dallas Wings (9-26) averaging a double-double for the season a year after winning the league MVP Award. The superstar in her eighth year is a particularly bad matchup for the Wings, though, and she thoroughly dominated Dallas at Michelob Ultra Arena on Sunday, going off for 34 points and eight rebounds in the Aces’ 106-87 win over the Wings. The Aces have now won seven in a row, while the Wings have lost seven of their last eight.
For the second game in a row, the Wings defense gave up 30-plus points in the first quarter. Wilson and Kierstan Bell scored nine apiece for the Aces in the opener on 7-of-8 combined shooting. All three of Bell’s early makes came from beyond the 3-point arc.
Bell canned her fourth straight to open the game when the Dallas defense was slow to rotate to her in the corner with just over seven minutes left in the first half to give Las Vegas its first double-digit lead, up 41-31 at the time. Chelsea Gray joined in the fun late in the second with a nonchalant little triple from near the top of the key when Myisha Hines-Allen sagged off of her a little too far, to give the Aces a 52-40 advantage.
The Dallas offense just wasn’t able to cover up for all the lapses on the other end in the second. Vegas shot 9-of-18 from 3-point range in the first half and took a 55-44 lead into the break. Wilson, who the Wings had so semblance of an answer for at any level, led all scorers with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting in the first half. On the other end, the Wings made just two of their nine first-half 3-point attempts.
The Wings tried to get a body on Wilson in the third quarter, but that just led to to eight free throws in the first five minutes of the frame for the WNBA’s second-leading scorer. Both Luisa Geiselsoder and Haley Jones picked up their fourth fouls early in the third, trying to defend the MVP candidate to no avail. A 10-2 Vegas run midway through the third extended the Aces’ lead to 69-57 with 4:40 left, then Jewel Loyd knocked down two straight 3-balls in the last 35 seconds of the quarter to give Las Vegas an 81-66 lead into the fourth quarter. Wilson scored 14 of the Aces’ 26 points in the third.
Wilson’s dominance on Sunday rendered the fourth quarter a mere formality. Bell’s sixth 3-pointer of the game, which came from the left wing midway through the quarter, gave Vegas a 91-74 lead, and the rout was on. Gray fed the beast all afternoon as well, finishing with 10 points and a career-high tying 14 assists in the win. The Aces shot 18-of-34 from 3-point land, including two late corner 3’s from former Wing NaLyssa Smith. Their 18 3-pointers tied the team’s season-high mark. The Wings have now allowed 203 points in their last two losses, after Friday’s 97-96 heartbreaker against the Los Angeles Sparks.
Maddie Siegrist remains one of the Wings’ few bright spots after her recent return from a knee injury that kept her out most of the year. Siegrist led Dallas with a new career-high mark of 23 points on 11-of-15 shooting, six rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots in the loss. She tied her previous career-high of 22 points on Tuesday in the Wings’ 81-80 win at Indiana. Siegrist is averaging 16.2 points per game in the six games she’s played since coming back from the injured list. Paige Bueckers added 18 points and five boards in the loss for the Wings.
Category: General Sports
