Is There Any Way to Slow Down A’ja Wilson? 

PHOENIX — Becky Hammon loves a descriptive example. To motivate the Aces this season, their coach has pulled out props, stories and personalized high school highlight videos. In the hours before Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, she recounted a trust exercise that she did with her group earlier this year, blindfolding one player at a time and having their teammates guide them through a maze of eggs without letting them step on any. There is no WNBA coach who so embraces the power of metaphor.

Sometimes, though, Hammon’s job can only be straightforward. This is one advantage of having the best player in the league on your roster: It can make things very literal. Hammon called a timeout in a tie game with 5.0 seconds on the clock on Wednesday. The Aces were on the brink of blowing a 17-point lead. But she did not have to reach for an example or pull out a complicated explanation or even call much of a play at all. The entire huddle already knew what should come next.

“Give the ball to A’ja and get out of the way,” Hammon said. “That’s all the play was.”

The coach later conceded that perhaps there had been a tad more to it. But not very much. And that simple description was indeed more or less what happened. The Aces got the ball to A’ja Wilson, and she drove, spun, created a bit of separation and finally released a jumper with a fraction of a second to play. The four-time MVP was shooting over the outstretched arms of first-team All-Defense forward Alyssa Thomas. It was not remotely in the vicinity of anything that could be considered an easy look. And yet she almost made it seem that way.

“I wouldn’t say it was some crazy play,” Hammon went on. “She just made a crazy shot.”

The final score was Aces 90, Mercury 88, giving Vegas a 3–0 lead in the best-of-seven Finals.

“In that moment, if a coach has to tell me what to do, I’m not doing my job,” Wilson said. “…Those are playoff basketball moments. Those are moments that you live for.”  

She has caused her fair share of them. Wilson finished Game 3 with 34 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks, yet another striking line on a gaudy postseason résumé. It can feel as if she has broken records on every night of this playoff run. That does include some rather tortured statistical contortions: On Wednesday, for example, the WNBA touted that she became the first player ever to have back-to-back Finals games with 25 or more points and 10 or more rebounds, and she also set a record for combined steals and blocks in a single postseason with 49. But such is the nature of her game. It’s so expansive that it can feel hard to properly contextualize.

Yet then again, sometimes, it’s simple. The Mercury knew just as well as the Aces that Hammon’s game plan would involve getting the ball to Wilson. (That’s a remarkable statement in and of itself: Wilson shared the floor on that possession with three of her fellow gold medalists from Team USA—Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray and Jewell Loyd—all capable shooters with impressive playoff records of their own. Still, no one debated that Vegas should give that final shot to anyone but Wilson.) Phoenix understood that. And while its defense could make the possession somewhat difficult for her, it could not do more than that, and it paid the price.  

“Everybody expected her to get the shot,” Thomas said. “She took a tough, contested shot and made it. It’s just the way the ballgame goes.”

It often does against Wilson. Yet this one very nearly did not. The Aces had entered the fourth quarter up by 17. They proceeded to watch that lead disappear through a disjointed, uncharacteristically sloppy final period—even though hits kept piling up for Phoenix. Satou Sabally left the floor with a presumed head injury. The Mercury had multiple key players in foul trouble, including Thomas, who played the last half of the quarter with five. But they kept pushing and chipping away, fueled by an explosive burst from Kahleah Copper, who had been relatively quiet until that point. That gave them a chance to win. Yet it was not enough for Phoenix.

“We’re facing elimination,” Thomas said. “We’ve had plenty of opportunities to go out there and get a win. At some point, we have to take it upon ourselves… Our first half was unacceptable.”

The Mercury now face a potential sweep at home as they find themselves down 3–0. Two of those three losses were decided by just one possession. Both of those games were eminently winnable for Phoenix. Yet a clear gap still feels like it has emerged between these rosters. The Aces have proven more cohesive and much stronger defensively and far better at making adjustments. And, of course, it can also be more straightforward than any of that. Sometimes, it’s about the fact that the Aces have Wilson, and no one has an answer.  

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