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Las Vegas Aces Struggle Amid Injuries and Illness
Chelsea Gray is still rehabbing an injury and hasn’t played this season. Fellow guard Jackie Young was ill and not with the team in Sunday’s loss. Coach Becky Hammon was ejected late in the game after two technical fouls.
And the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces are getting every opponent’s best shot. It adds up to a 5-4 record and Las Vegas dropping to No. 7 in ESPN’s WNBA Power Rankings.
The Aces went 1-2 this past week, and it’s the nature of the Power Rankings that teams can move up and down dramatically week to week. The Aces could rocket back up soon, especially if they right the ship this week. They face the Minnesota Lynx, Phoenix Mercury, and last season’s WNBA Finals opponent, the New York Liberty (3 p.m. ET Saturday, ABC). The Liberty, winners of seven in a row, replace the Connecticut Sun at No. 1.
Las Vegas star A’ja Wilson — who is the MVP front-runner — said after Sunday’s 96-92 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks that there are benefits to early adversity.
“Yeah, we’re in a lull right now, it doesn’t feel great,” Wilson said after the Aces got out to a 14-0 lead Sunday but still lost. “But we have to continue to stick together. If our locker room goes in shambles, then we have a bigger problem than just stat sheets and scoreboards.”
“These times are hard, but I guarantee you they will not last forever. It makes you respect the game. Sometimes when you get those bright lights all the time and you’re winning, it kind of covers up and masks a lot of different things. But when that adversity hits, that’s when you really can tell who’s bought in versus who’s not. Who’s real, who’s phony.”
Wilson’s stats are MVP caliber: She leads the league in scoring (28.3), rebounding (11.8), and blocked shots (3.0). Sunday, she had 31 points and passed the 4,000-point mark in her career, the third-fastest player in the league to reach the milestone (198 games).
She’s doing all she can, but the Aces miss Gray and Young, who struggled with sickness through a home loss to the Seattle Storm on Friday and then didn’t travel to Los Angeles for Sunday’s game. Rookie Kate Martin got her first start in place of Young and finished with 13 points, a bright spot for the Aces.
“I particularly love for Kate to be in these situations,” Wilson said. “So when [the playoffs] roll around, it’s not a punch in the face. It’s familiar. You’ve been in the trenches.”
Previous rankings:
Preseason | May 20 | May 27 | June 3
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