Aces vs. Sky: Inside A’ja Wilson’s game-winning buzzer-beater, a play over 20 years in the making

CHICAGO — With 1.1 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Sky, Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon was filtering through her mental rolodex of plays. As she tried to design a potential game-winner on the fly in a raucous environment, she was facing an unusual challenge: Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon had been her teammate for five seasons with the New York Liberty.

“I had a couple other [plays] rolling around in my head, but one of them that I was thinking about I know Spoon knows because we used to run it in New York, it’s a [former Liberty coach] Richie Adubato play,” Hammon said. “I stayed away from the Richie plays because I know Spoon knows those.”

In the end, Hammon out-thought her former backcourt partner and dialed up the perfect set. Of course, it helps to have Chelsea Gray and A’ja Wilson to execute what you put on the whiteboard, and those two combined to lift the Aces to a dramatic 77-75 win.

Here’s how it happened:

The play starts with Kelsey Plum on the strong-side block and A’ja Wilson at the corresponding elbow, while Megan Gustafson and Jackie Young are spread out above the arc for spacing. Gray, of course, is the inbounder.

As Gray gets the ball, Wilson sets a screen for Plum, who curls to the basket. Gustafson, meanwhile, sets a pick of her own for Young, who can come to the ball. All of that, though, is just decoy action.

Instead of continuing toward the rim, Plum whirls around and sets a backpick for Wilson, who dives to the rim. At this point, the ball is already in the air. Wilson, in fact, said Gray’s pass came a split-second early: “I saw the shadow of the ball before I saw the ball and I was like, ‘OK, this wasn’t the timing we drew up, but alright.’

Gray may have been slightly ahead of schedule, but her pass hit Wilson right in the hands, to no surprise. “When it comes to trusting someone with a pass, it’s always gonna be Chelsea Gray for me,” Wilson said. “I trust Chelsea with the ball no matter what.”

Plum’s screen had taken Angel Reese out of the play, while Gustafson and Young’s fluff action at the top of the key prevented the Sky from having backside help. As a result, Wilson was able to catch the ball right under the rim and go up for an uncontested layup.

While Gray and Wilson will get the headlines, Hammon credited Plum for making it all work.

“She really takes a lot of pride in her screening, and there’s a lot of combinations that we use with her and A’ja,” Hammon said. “She’s such a great screener, she’s such a great shooter and scorer, when she’s setting a pick for A’ja, you have to pick your poison with those two in action. That was a heck of a pass by Chelsea, but the real special part there was Plum’s screen.

Wilson, who finished with 20 points and 18 rebounds, but shot 8-of-28 from the field, was just happy to finally see a shot go down.

“In that moment I was just trying to do my job,” Wilson said. “I didn’t put the basketball in the hoop well all game. I was very frustrated, but my teammates were the ones that just kept uplifting me to keep shooting the basketball. In that moment I was like, ‘This is what we’re supposed to do’ … I was so glad we were able to deliver and be on the winning side.”