The Aces went 18-4 in the regular season to earn the No. 1 seed for the playoffs, where they defeated Connecticut in the semifinals before losing to Seattle in the finals.
Basketball
Breanna Stewart scored 26 points as the Seattle Storm won their second WNBA championship in three years and fourth overall with a 92-59 win over the Aces on Tuesday.
The Aces find themselves in a 2-0 hole to the Storm in the WNBA Finals, but coach Bill Laimbeer’s competitiveness won’t allow them to quit.
The Aces shot 52 percent, but couldn’t slow a Seattle team that hit 57.1 percent and had three players score at least 21 points in a 104-91 win Sunday in the WNBA Finals.
The Seattle Storm played faster than the Aces and outscored them 48-18 in the paint Friday in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, mostly off transition opportunities.
Breanna Stewart had 37 points and 15 rebounds, and Sue Bird set a playoff record with 16 assists as the Seattle Storm pulled away for a 93-80 win in Bradenton, Florida.
The Aces defied their preseason expectations, while the Storm lived up to theirs. They will meet in the best-of-five WNBA Finals beginning Friday.
The Aces have reached the WNBA Finals in their third year in Las Vegas after faring no better than 8-26 in their final three years in San Antonio.
A’ja Wilson scored 11 of her 23 points in the fourth quarter, and she added 11 rebounds to lead the Aces to a 66-63 win over the Connecticut Sun in Bradenton, Florida.
The Aces face a deciding Game 5 against the Sun and hope to avoid being the first No. 1 seed in the current playoff format to not reach the WNBA Finals.
Aces forward Angel McCoughtry scored 16 of her 29 points in the third quarter, and the Aces beat the Sun 84-75 to force Game 5 in the WNBA semifinals.
The Aces admit they’ve been uptight in their three playoff games, and that has resulted in a 2-1 deficit against the Connecticut Sun in their WNBA semifinal series.
The Aces were the No. 1 seed for the playoffs despite shooting by far the fewest 3-pointers in the regular season at 254. They made 93, the only team that hit fewer than 100.
A’ja Wilson finished with a career playoff-high 29 points, seven rebounds and a franchise-record seven blocked shots in an 83-75 win that tied the WNBA semifinal series.
The top-seeded Aces will look to bounce back from a lackluster 87-62 loss to the seventh-seeded Connecticut Sun in Game 2 of the WNBA semifinals.