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The Minnesota Lynx have been lighting the WNBA on fire all season long. Tonight, they continued with an historic 53-Point blowout of the Las Vegas Aces — the largest home loss in WNBA history (or the largest road win in history). The Aces have found some momentum of recent, but they stalled in awful fashion this afternoon.
Game Recap
The Aces never had a chance tonight. They trailed after the 1st quarter, 35-17. They trailed at half, 67-33. Of course, the game ended at 111-58. The Aces shot 34.3% from the field and only 50% at the free throw line.
Defensively, they allowed the Lynx to shoot 63% from three and that alone is all you need to know.
The highlights to this Lynx effort come with four players scoring 17+ points: Kayla McBride, Napheesa Collier, Jessica Shepard and Natisha Hiedeman. Unfortunately for Collier, she did land awkwardly in the 4th quarter and had to exit the game with a minor foot injury. It seems it is not serious, but we will learn more in due time.
What This Means for the Aces
I believe in the saying, “No team is as good, or bad, as the they were last week”. The Aces must take this game in stride and move on to the next. Dwelling on the big loss will do no good, and they know that. More importantly, Becky Hammon knows that. She has been critical of this team throughout the season, but they have answered the bell and bounced back in impressive ways.
The Aces now sit back in 8th place in the WNBA, but that is still plenty good. Despite a .500 record, they are a playoff team and only they can take that away from themselves. Their next game is right back at home tomorrow against the Golden State Valkyries. This gives them a chance to come right off of a fresh loss and take out their frustration on Golden State.
Looking ahead, the two teams have split their season series so far, where the Aces won the recent of the two, 104-102 on July 12th. To look on the bright side, the Aces have maintained their health and that is a big bonus in a league where many have not been as lucky. Credit for Becky Hammon not stretching the effort tonight. As the game was lost, A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young sat. Personally, they both did not actually play too bad, but they ended up recording less than 20 minutes each. This will hopefully provide the rest needed to respond big tomorrow night.
As stated, the Aces will host the Valkyries tomorrow night at 6pm EST/3pm PST.
