The Guru’s WNBA Finals Roundup: Wilson’s Game-Winner Gives Las Vegas a 3-0 Lead Spoiling Phoenix’s Fourth Quarter Rally

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Former South Carolina great A’ja Wilson is firing Las Vegas through the WNBA finals the way the now four-time MVP helped the Aces shred the 13-team league the last two months of the regular season.

Wilson ruined a Phoenix comeback in Game 3 of the best-of-seven series Wednesday night  before a Mercury heartbroken hometown crowd of 17,071 at the Mortgage Matchup Center with a last second shot for a 90-88 victory and a 3-0 lead making it likely unnecessary for the expanded two games the league added in the hopes of making the five-game thriller won by New York last season even more so this time.

The Aces now sit 40 minutes away from taking their third title in the last four seasons when the series resumes in Phoenix Friday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

The only other team in the WNBA’s 29-year history to carry out a similar feat was the former Houston Comets, which won the league’s first four titles from 1997-2000 and the first one was a single winner-take-all affair.

“I mean under (coach) Becky (Hammon) we’ve never won a Game 3,” Wilson said. “This was a must-win for us. Just for that sake.

“I feel like my biggest mentality and the thing I relayed to my teammates is like, we just need to win one … win possessions, win the quarters, and then everything else will pan out.”

Hammon wisecracked afterward on what she drew up for what became the ninth game-winner in the last five seconds of a Finals contest in the history of the league.

“Get the ball to A’ja and get out of the way,” Hammon jested.

Wilson, who as a senior gave another league legend, Dawn Staley, the first of three Gamecocks NCAA titles, double-doubled with 34 points shooting 11-20 from the field while grabbing 14 rebounds.

It’s her fifth career 30-point double-double in the postseason, and third one for a player to produce in the Finals, joining New York’s Breanna Stewart in 2021 then with Seattle and last season with the Liberty, and Stewart’s teammate Jonquel Jones then with the Connecticut Sun in 2019.

Wilson, though, nearly became the goat instead of her acclaim as a G.O.A.T. when she committed a turnover losing the ball on a backdoor cut with the score tied 88-88 and 40 seconds left in regulation.

“It may not necessarily be me to get it back, but I knew it was going to be on the defensive end or something,” Wilson said. “I just knew I had to get something back because that would have crushed my whole soul. When I saw the next play was for me, I was like, ‘Trust me.’”

Jewell Loyd said there was no doubt on her teammate’s ability to win the contest.

“We all had 100 percent confidence in A’ja,” Loyd said. “Everyone on that bench was saying, ‘We’re winning this game.’”

When August arrived, the Aces had been reduced to a .500 team suffering a WNBA worst-ever home blowout to Minnesota, then the prohibitive favorite to win a record fifth league title.

But Las Vegas then went on to capture the Aces’ last 16 games, took the playoff opener but next suffered a 16-4 meltdown at the finish in Game 2 in Seattle and then advanced on a last second win at home over the Storm.

In the semifinals, injury-riddled Indiana minus Caitlin Clark and four teammates won the best-of-five opener in Las Vegas, tied the series 2-2 at home and then on the road took the Aces to the last seconds of overtime before Hammon’s team prevailed.

In this one, the Aces were dominating, up 17 heading into the fourth quarter over Phoenix, which had knocked out defending champion New York with a two-game rally in the first round, then went on to even the semifinals with a 20-point rally on top-seed Minnesota in Game 2 and sweep the next two at home, advancing with a 14-point rally in Game 4.

That was the Mercury team that came to life with another comeback in the final period to tie the score down the stretch.

“We threw a punch, and they crawled back,” Hammon said. "I think to a certain degree, of course, I want the game to be played perfectly, but you have to credit them for getting hot and giving themselves a chance to win at the end. ... They had to win that one.”

Phoenix is alive now only because in the first-ever best-of-seven Finals, the Aces have to win one more to complete the first sweep in the championship since losing in the Covid-19 caused bubble season in Miami in 2020 to Seattle 3-0.

But the Mercury have a daunting task, needing to sweep the next four games to overcome Las Vegas.

“We’ve had plenty of opportunities to go out there and get a win,” said Phoenix’s Alyssa Thomas, the WNBA career leader in regular season and playoffs triple-doubles who starred at Maryland out of Harrisburg. “At some point we have to take it upon ourselves.”

Thomas, who just missed another triple-double with 14 points, 12 boards and nine assists, played her entire WNBA career with Connecticut prior to this season.

Jackie Young added 21 points for the Aces, Chelsea Gray scored 11, and Loyd scored 16 as a reserve.

The Mercury’s Satou Sabally scored 24, North Philly’s Kahleah Copper, who starred at Rutgers, scored 17, and off the bench DeWanna Bonner, who came from Indiana at midseason, scored 25 points with 10 rebounds, but missed a chance to rescue Phoenix following Wilson’s tiebreaker.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat,” said Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts. “We’ve got a tough road ahead, but we’ve got to take it one game at a time.”