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PHOENIX — The Las Vegas Aces are out here completing side quests. The Phoenix Mercury can barely keep the main thing the main thing.
That’s the difference in a WNBA Finals played between a squad attempting to cement a dynasty and one built from scratch. The Aces are, in Becky Hammon’s own metaphorical words, playing with their food. Everything is a game, a chance to accrue mini victories en route to a WNBA championship.
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The Mercury are battling to figure out what’s on the plate, and even that is an oversized challenge. They continue to harp on defense, but can’t lock it down for long enough stretches to win a game. It was the first thing Alyssa Thomas, close to a 0-3 career record in the Finals, said at the podium following a 90-88 loss at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix on Wednesday.
“Shame on us for not coming out the way that we need to come out,” the MVP finalist said, a harsh but realistic sound bite at the backend of a postseason in which they’ve been more of the fourth-quarter heroes than first-quarter contenders.
Meanwhile, Hammon’s focus went micro, because frankly, it could. She wanted a solid defensive start to avoid having to call the first timeout, as she has so many times to reset her squad.
“Make them do it,” she said.
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Sure enough, the Aces can check that off the list. Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts called one at 5:10 of the first when his team’s 5-0 start crashed into a 15-8 deficit.
Hammon has been playing chess this entire week, understanding through years of built trust with her stars what they’re capable of and what they may need at any moment. Her timeouts quell runs, and the play calls out of them spell Aces leads. She’s been here multiple times before with her big three of A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray.
Tibbetts is forced to play checkers, his squad too young and collectively inexperienced to compete in a more complicated game. The Mercury carried over only two players from their 2024 roster. Not to mention they’ve been outmatched, struggling to string together full games or to make the one final play needed from a championship squad.
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It happened in Game 1 and again in Game 3, putting their season on the line trailing 0-3 in the league’s first best-of-seven series.
“We’re not into moral victories,” Tibbetts said. “This is a game we wanted to get — needed to get.”
The Aces, too, considered it a must-win game for far different reasons.
“I mean, under Becky Hammon we never won a Game 3, so,” Wilson said, lingering off for effect.
Check that off, too. In 2022, they lost the third game of the Finals to Thomas and DeWanna Bonner’s Connecticut Sun. In 2023, it was on the road in New York. In both seasons, they could have wrapped up the title in those games. Instead, they put the bow on in Game 4.
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That’s the difference in levels at which these squads are competing. Everything is a fun aside, building toward the main goal. Win Game 2 for Jewell Loyd on her birthday? Cool, let’s also win one for Chelsea Gray on hers. And maybe find a few more.
“Does anybody have a birthday on Friday?” Hammon asked the room.
Whomever does can virtually celebrate with the champions if the Aces do indeed finish this off. It sure felt like Wilson’s game-winning shot over the outstretched hands of two defenders elevated Las Vegas to it already. The Mercury will need to channel the proper desperation and reconvene on how to start as solid defensively as they end it.
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If the 2025 season concludes Friday, it would be the first Finals sweep since 2020, when the Seattle Storm handled the Aces, 3-0, in the bubble season. The Storm roster included Jewell Loyd, the Aces’ sixth player by choice, while Aces carryovers Wilson and Young watched in their first Finals appearances.
“When I saw Jewell in gold Kobes, I say, yeah, it’s been cool,” Wilson said of that 2020 matchup. “ … I’m glad she got on A’Ones now though.”
That’s one quest checked and another left for the taking. Loyd is now 9-0 in Finals games, including a three-game Storm sweep of the Washington Mystics in 2018. They could give her the undefeated 10.
The Aces will look to complete it Friday, while the Mercury fight for their lives.
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