The Guru Report: Aces Closing Surge Brings Las Vegas a 78-71 Win Over the Connecticut Sun and First WNBA Title

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Just when it seemed the Connecticut Sun might finish climbing out of a 2-0 hole and send the WNBA Finals back to Las Vegas for a penultimate fifth game when they went ahead 71-70 on league Sixth Player honoree Brionna Jones’ second of two foul shots with 1 minute, 50 seconds left in regulation Sunday afternoon, the top-seeded Aces’ Riquana Williams answered with a 23-foot three pointer here and her squad finished closing out on an 8-0 run to take the series 3-1.

In the process Becky Hammon, a Colorado State graduate whose WNBA All-Star playing career began as a walk-on with the New York Liberty, became the first coach to win the league title in their first season as a head coach.

Prior to this season, Hammon had been an assistant to NBA San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich since July 3, 2015 when he made her the first female in league history to hold that title and she was thought to be on a short list to become the first NBA female head coach.

“Obviously, super proud of the group.” Hammon said afterwards. “It was a battle. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It’s never easy to close a game in the regular season, let alone in a championship game on somebody else’s home court.

“And you saw different people step up at different moments tonight and that’s what makes us difficult to beat.”

The third-seeded Sun (25-11, regular season), who upset the second-seeded defending champion Chicago Sky in game five of the semifinals in the Windy City, after handled by the Aces in two games out West in the semifinals, had come back Thursday and blasted Las Vegas 105-76 here on Thursday night to extend the series.

Former Duke star guard Chelsea Gray, a seven-year league veteran,  had a game high 20 points for the Aces (26-10) and dealt six assists to be voted the series’ Most Valuable Player.

A’ja Wilson, the league’s most valuable player, had 11 points and 14 rebounds, while Kelsey Plum, the overall No. 1 pick in the WBNA in 2017 by the San Antonio Silver Stars, the previous site of the franchise, had 15 points. Williams scored 17 off the bench and Jackie Young scored 13 and dealt eight points.

This was the Sun’s second title game in recent seasons, losing to the  Washington Mystics in 2019 in a decisive Game 5 in the nation’s capital, while last year as the top seed, Connecticut was upset in the semifinals by Chicago on the way to beating the Phoenix Mercury 3-1 for the Sky’s first ever title. They lost in the semifinals in 2020 when the entire season was played under the bubble dealing with Covid-19.

Curt Miller, the Sun coach who will quickly head to Australia as an assistant under former La Salle star and Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, first paid homage to Hammon, with whom holds a long professional relationship.

“We certainly had a lot of fun competing against each other in these semifinals,” Miller said.

“When you come up short, it really hurts. That means that there was something that mattered and something special amongst that group of players when it hurts that much.”

Jonquel Jones, a former George Washington star who was last season’s MVP, had 13 points and eight rebounds, while former Maryland star Alyssa Thomas, who had the first-ever triple double in a Finals in Game 3, added to the notoriety with was became the first-ever back-to-back in the finals, scoring 11 points, dealt 11 assists, and grabbed 10 rebounds.

Courtney Williams, who returned to the franchise this season, had 17 points and six rebounds, while DeWanner Banner had 12 points and eight rebounds. Jones had 11 points off the bench.

Las Vegas  jumped to a 16-6 lead late in the first quarter before the Sun rallied within four points with the Aces ahead 16-12 as the period closed.

The Aces built a 25-15 lead late in the next period and the Sun rallied again to tie it 25-25 before Las Vegas went to the dressing room slightly ahead 30-28 at the half.

Las Vegas went ahead slightly in the third but the Sun tied it 39-39 just over the six-minute mark of the quarter. The two teams stayed close over the next several minutes, the third period ending with a 53-49 lead by Las Vegas in front of a very loud sellout crowd of 9,652.

The winners built a five-point lead early in the final period but again the Sun would not yield until Las Vegas gained ultimate control in the closing minutes bring to a close a quite successful 26th season in WNBA history with huge growth in viewership over the various platforms.

Miller said of using his three all-star bigs down the stretch against the Las Vegas move to a small lineup, “they are also very good defensively, those three bigs, and try to just overwhelm them at times with our size.”

Noting the overall sustained success in recent seasons while still falling short, Miller said, “In pro sports, you want banners, and we are going to keep grinding and grinding until we can try to hang a banner.”

The Aces’ Wilson joins a select group, having won a NCAA title and Olympics gold medal, both under former Philadelphia star Dawn Staley with South Carolina and the USA squad, while now securing her first WNBA crown.

The winners were previous coached by former NBA Detroit “Bad Boys” era star Bill Laimbeer, who took a failing former Detroit Shock squad and turned it into a three-time national champion.

That franchise later moved to briefly become the Tulsa Shock in the Midwest and several years ago moved to become what is now the Dallas Wings.

Las Vegas is planning a celebratory parade on Tuesday and Wilson half joked and half seriously noted to Aces fans how much liquor they need to consume in advance of attending the celebration.

“But drink responsibly,” she said.

With the Aces landing the title on the road in the Sun’s home here at the Mohegan Sun Arena the one thing missing upon the game’s conclusion was the torrent of confetti that has dropped in previous WNBA title won at home as well as at NCAA championships, which are played on neutral courts.

One of the biggest storylines in this offseason will be the move closer to add possibly two expansion franchises, of which commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who grew up in South Jersey and played for eventual Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw at Lehigh has mentioned Philadelphia being on a list of 10-15 teams as frontrunners.

Over the next several weeks the FIBA World Championship in Australia will take over with USA coached by Reeve, who also will handle the nation’s pursuit to continue dominating for gold medals in the Olympics.

By the time a winner is determined, focus will be on collegiate conference and team media days followed by preseason games ahead of a collegiate season in which Staley takes South Carolina as a two-time defending champion in a race that concludes March 31-April 2 in the March Madness Women’s Final Four returning to Reunion Arena in Dallas.

This season for the second time both the Division II and Division Division III titles will also be earned at the site of the women’s Division I finals in a tournament whose Sweet 16 will be played at just two sites with eight teams each instead of the traditional four each sending its winner to become the Women’s Final Four.