The Guru’s WNBA Report: Las Vegas Avoids a 3-0 New York Sweep While Minnesota Goes Up 2-1 at Connecticut in Best-of-Five Semifinals

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The two-time reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces still have a chance to make history after exploding Friday night back home in the third quarter on the the top-seed New York Liberty with a 16-0 run run over a span of 7:36 on the way to a 95-81 victory and prevent being closed out 3-0 in their best-of-five semifinal series.

Earlier in the evening former UConn star Napheesa Collier returned to the form she showed scoring 80 points in the second-seeded Minnesota Lynx 2-0 sweep of the Phoenix Mercury in the first round by collecting 26 points and leading coach Cheryl Reeve’s squad to a 90-81 victory over the third-seeded Connecticut Sun to go up 2-1 and regain home advantage.

Thus, for the third straight Sunday the WNBA will be going head-to-head with the NFL having performed well in the TV ratings the previous two weekends.

New York gets its second chance to end the reign of the Aces and move on to the best-of-five finals playing Game 4 in Vegas at 3 p.m. on ABC while Minnesota follows at 5 p.m. on ESPN against a Sun team trying to stay alive in the battle between the league’s top two defensive teams.

Decisive Game 5 contests if needed will air Tuesday night on ESPN2 back in New York and Minnesota, tip times to be determined.

Las Vegas, falling 2-0 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on the court the Aces won the finals series 3-1 last season in the battle of the two superpowers, came home with the pressure that no team in the history of any WNBA playoffs series with a similar start had ever successfully advanced.

Phoenix forced a Game 5 in 2018 with the Seattle Storm in a semifinals series.

The Aces broke a record with their 12th straight home triumph passing the Los Angeles Sparks (2001-04) and defunct Sacramento Monarchs (2003-06).

The win also snapped a 5-0 losing streak this season to the revenge-minded Liberty – three prior to the playoffs and the two earlier this week in the semifinals.

Former Notre Dame star and 2024 Olympian Jackie Young in Vegas scored 24 points, Kelsey Plum, her Olympic teammate on the Gold Medalists in Paris who at Washington held the Division I women’s scoring record broken last winter by Caitlin Clark at Iowa, collected 20, while regular season  MVP and former South Carolina standout  A’ja Wilson, also an Olympian, double doubled with 19 points and 14 rebounds, Tiffany Hayes scored 11, and Olympian Chelsea Gray had 10 points with seven assists.

 “This is when teams are most dangerous, when their backs are against the wall,” said Liberty Olympian Breanna Stewart. “They're going to throw everything at you. They came out and did what they're supposed to do tonight.”

Stewart had 19 points for New York, one of the remaining of the eight 1997 WNBA charter teams, but never having won a title.

Connecticut is also seeking its first title. The franchise came on board as an expansion unit early in the WNBA’S history under the NBA Orlando Magic management later purchased and brought to New England in 2003 by the Mohegan Indian Tribe at their casino-entertainment complex in Uncasville an hour away from the UConn campus.

They were the first ownership in the league not possessing an NBA franchise.

Back in the Vegas series, Wilson has only gone to the line 10 times, including twice Friday night.

Aces coach Becky Hammon slammed the way her three-time MVP has been treated by officials.

“It's ridiculous and I'm freakin’ tired of it,” Hammon said. “If you do the minutes she's played to the free throw attempts, it's one free throw probably every 25 minutes.

“With as much as she's touching the ball and as much as she's in the paint — it's not like she's out there chucking threes — and how she puts it on the floor. She attacks closeouts, and she gets bumped constantly and I'm tired of it.”

Jonquel Jones and Nyara Sabally each scored 11, while 10 points came from Germany’s Leonie Fiebich, a member of the all-rookie team of which Indiana’s Clark was a vote short of unanimous from the 67-members of the WNBA post season awards media panel.

But Sabrina Ionescu, with a 24.5 average in the playoffs prior to Friday night, was held to four points, all in the fourth quarter while shooting 1-for-7 from the field.

Vegas outscored New York 42-28 in the paint – reversing the Liberty domination by 20 in Game 2 – and shot 52.1 % from the field, including 40.6 % from deep.

The Aces in the third held a slim 57-53 lead when erupting on the run that extended to 21-2 into the fourth quarter.

“We’re a better team than what we showed,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said. “Even that first half we were only down three, it just didn’t feel good.”

Meanwhile Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, the former La Salle star out of South Jersey, who guided the Americans to their eighth straight Gold last August in Paris, got closer to snapping the record-tying four WNBA crowns in the last decade.

Collier had 26 points after being held to nine points, shooting 3-14, in the Lynx series-tying Game 2 back in Minneapolis.

“Everybody has an off night, and I try to contribute in other ways to help the team,” Collier  said.

The Sun were rallying moving within 81-73 with 3:03 left when Collier scored, made a defensive play and found former Stanford star Alanna Smith, who scored from beyond the arc to put the Lynx in solid position.

“It's crunch time, I know i had to be aggressive, especially in one-on-one coverage,” the WNBA defensive player of the year said. “Then, you know, just being the same on the other side, we really had to be aggressive. They were playing with desperation at the end.”

The Lynx’s last finals were 2017, when the fourth championship came at the end of a seven-year run.

“Tough one for us,” said Connecticut coach Stephanie white. “They do what they wanted to do on the offensive end of the floor. We didn't do a good enough job getting us prepared to play today. We got outplayed, outscored and out coached.”

Brionna Jones scored 21 for the home folks while DeWanna Bonner scored 16. The former Auburn great passed retired Tennessee alum Candace Parker’s postseason career scoring total of 1,149 into second place with 1,159 behind Phoenix all-timer Diana Taurasi, who may be heading to retirement with 1,455 reached when Minnesota ousted the Mercury in the last round.