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For the third time in the last four seasons, the Las Vegas Aces are in the WNBA Finals. The No. 2 seed, they’ll open their series against the No. 4-seed Phoenix Mercury this Friday, October 3 in front of a national audience on ESPN.
Unlike their two prior title runs in 2022 and 2023, when they were clearly one of the WNBA’s top teams from start to finish, the Aces’ 2025 season has been rather tumultuous. They hovered around .500 for the first half of the year, struggling through inconsistent defense and the clear decline of some of their core pieces as they sat at 14-14 at the beginning of August. Missing the playoffs appeared to be a real possibility—a swift and unexpected end to the team’s budding dynasty.
What happened after that belongs in the league’s history books. The Aces reeled off an incredible 16-straight regular-season wins, finishing with a 30-14 record and the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. A’ja Wilson earned an unprecedented fourth MVP award, while veterans such as Chelsea Gray and Jewell Loyd hit what could best be described as a second wind. As if a switch had been flipped, Las Vegas had its swagger back.
Now, the Aces are back to where they’re used to being: the WNBA Finals. Their road to get there wasn’t necessarily an easy one; they eked out a first-round win over the No. 7-seed Seattle Storm and survived a resilient No. 6 seed in the Indiana Fever in the semifinals, needing the maximum number of games to win both series.
Regardless, wins are wins–especially in the playoffs—and the Aces believe that doing it the hard way has better prepared them for the moment they’re now facing.
“This one just feels different,” Wilson said of the Aces’ current playoff run. “Obviously, we’re not complacent. It’s not, ‘oh, we’re happy to be here,’ because we worked our butts off to get here … we went through the mud for this one.”
The Aces have advantages against the Mercury, but they can’t get complacent
The Aces will need to keep that hungry attitude as they face the Mercury, who upset the No. 1-seed Minnesota Lynx in four games. They defeated the Mercury three games to one in the regular season, and they’ll have homecourt advantage in the best-of-seven Finals, but they can’t expect the series to be a cakewalk.
To put it simply, this year’s Mercury have made a habit of exceeding expectations. Entering the season with just two holdovers from 2024, Phoenix has looked more like a team that has played together for a decade than one that was essentially reloading on the fly; in building around star forward Alyssa Thomas, the Mercury successfully forged a new identity based on aggressive defense, positionless offense and relentless physicality, and it earned them playoff wins over the top-seeded Lynx and defending champion New York Liberty.
There’s one thing the Mercury have had trouble accounting for, though, and that’s the reigning MVP.
Wilson was absolutely unstoppable in three regular-season games against Phoenix (it should be noted that the Aces’ one loss to the Mercury came without Wilson in the lineup), averaging 25 points, 15.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game, and there’s little reason to believe she can’t put up similar numbers in this year’s Finals. The Mercury specialize in creating havoc with its active, switchable team defense, but none of the frontcourt players in their rotation have the size to impede Wilson. Compare this to, say, the Fever, whose 6-foot-5 center Aliyah Boston made life for Wilson about as difficult as possible in the semifinals; the Mercury have no such option on defense, which automatically gives Las Vegas a major advantage in the paint and on the boards.
Of course, no matter how good Wilson is individually, the Aces will also need strong contributions elsewhere.
Gray, who averaged 14.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.5 assists against the Mercury in the regular season, is known for taking over big games by making difficult shots, and Jackie Young remains one of the best two-way perimeter players in the WNBA, coming off a 32-point, 10-assist performance in the Aces’ series-clinching win over Indiana. They’ll also need to make sure they take care of the basketball; the Mercury’s top-notch transition game is fueled by the athleticism of Thomas, Sabally and Kahleah Copper, and as they proved in the first and second rounds of the playoffs, they don’t need homecourt advantage to bring the energy on defense and punish opponents for their mistakes.
