New York Liberty beats Las Vegas Ice and advances to the WNBA Finals

LAS VEGAS — All season long, the Las Vegas Aces haven’t been shy about admitting the struggles of hitting triples. After a tough regular season and a tough semifinal matchup against the top-seeded New York Liberty, the No. 4s faced a bigger uphill battle than ever as they tried to get back to the top of the mountain.

But Las Vegas finally ran out of steam on Sunday, its quest for history falling short when it dropped Game 4 to the Liberty 76-62 and lost the best-of-five series 3-1.

New York, which is making its own push toward history in hopes of capturing the franchise’s first title, will appear in its sixth and second straight WNBA Finals. Its opponent will be determined Tuesday when Minnesota and Connecticut take on the other semifinalist in a winner-take-all 5-game set in Minneapolis.

The Liberty, who fell short of the championship last year at the hands of Las Vegas, have beaten the Aces in six of their seven meetings this year, including three in the regular season.

“They’ve been the best team all year. Let’s be real,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said after the game. “Their group deserved it. They deserved it all year.”

However, two-time MVP Brianna Stewart remained resolute: “We haven’t done anything yet,” said Stewart, who finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and four blocks. “This has been a tough series, an emotional series, for a team for a number of different reasons… (but there is) just a feeling of dissatisfaction.”

Only once in the WNBA has there been a three-peat, when the Houston Comets dominated the sport’s early years from 1997 to 2000. In this millennium, only the New York Yankees (1998-00) and Los Angeles Lakers (2000-02) have managed to do so. In their own league. No team has accomplished that feat in that span in the NHL or NFL.

“Just doing it, it’s tough,” three-time Las Vegas Player of the Year Aja Wilson said of the three-peat assignment. “Every team looks different. Your team looks different. Nothing is the same. Everybody wants to beat you. You’re everyone’s Super Bowl champion. It’s hard to get there.”

Although the Aces trailed most of the way on Sunday, they stayed within striking distance, holding just two points heading into the fourth quarter. A 23-11 frame by New York, which started with a 16-2 outburst, made a big difference.

In some ways, the game reflected some of the Aces’ struggles throughout the season. Wilson led the offense with 19 points on 53.8% shooting. But the guards, who this summer were unable to replicate their efficiency from the previous two Las Vegas tournaments, did not help Wilson enough. Kelsey Bloom, Tiffany Hayes, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young combined for 12 for 42 shooting (28.6%), and the team as a whole only made 7 of 30 attempts from the 3-point arc (23.3%). After Hammon frustrated her team allowed a “pitching clinic” in the first two games of the series, New York got plenty of those easy looks down the stretch Sunday afternoon.

The disparity left Hammon comparing her group to the Minnesota Lynx — a team with good talent that is an excellent team. I felt the Aces had excellent talent but were just a good team this season.

“You don’t get it every year. That’s not how this works. You can’t flip a switch,” Hammon said. “It’s the beautiful thing about sports, actually. Work, commitment, buy-in, playing hard, desire and will will always show up in the end.

“And New York had really great will and determination all year long. We talked a lot last year. I’m sure they heard that, and they have to beat us this year.”

The Aces’ season was the most difficult of Hammon’s three-year tenure. They started 6-6, recording by mid-June the same number of losses they had in all of 2023. The head of the offensive snake, point guard Chelsea Gray, was missing the first 13 games of the season due to a foot injury suffered in last year’s finals.

Then there were multiple off-field controversies to deal with: The league had been investigating the franchise since May to determine whether it was granting impermissible benefits and circumventing the salary cap. Then in August, former ace forward Derica Hamby filed a federal lawsuit against the team and the league alleging pregnancy discrimination and that she was subjected to intimidation and retaliation by the franchise.

Las Vegas “could have been down a lot earlier,” Gray said Sunday, and managed to play its best basketball of the year by the end of the regular season, entering the playoffs and winning nine of its final 10 games.

However, after a glimmer of hope with a resounding Game 3 win on Friday that kept their season alive after losing the two games in Brooklyn, Hammon and her team sat processing their first season since 2021 that did not end in jubilation.

“We’ve never done walk-out meetings (before). We celebrated the walk-out,” Hammon joked, before needing to hold back tears, noting the pain of Wilson’s historic season ending without a championship.

“We hurt for each other,” Gray said. “All the work we’ve put in, the highs and lows of this season, the injuries, not playing, on and off the field. You want that to come with the trophy at the end, right? So I think the pain is there because I wanted the trophy at the end.”

“It’s disgusting, it hurts,” Wilson said. “But I’m very proud of the group we had.”

Hammon referred to New York as a team “put together to get us out,” something that has been even more true since last offseason. Entering the second year of the “super team” era after acquiring Stewart, Jonkell Jones and Courtney Vandersloot, the Liberty have retooled their bench, most notably adding 6-foot-4 rookie German guard Leoni Fibic.

New York’s length and improved defense pushed the Aces’ shooting percentage to 32.8% on Sunday as they continued their streak of not having consecutive losses since late May. Fiebich had terrible foul trouble but finished with a game-best +28 plus/minus. The team’s improved chemistry and understanding of how to win with courage allowed them to put the game away and avoid extending the series to a winner-takes-all Game 5.

Sabrina Ionescu (22 points) confirmed that “no obstacle” had been overcome by sending the Aces home, while admitting that Liberty’s battles against Las Vegas “made us a better team.”

“It’s a testament to their cooperation, their experience, and how hard they want to go out there and give it their best every night,” Ionescu said of the Aces. “They laid the foundation, and they continue to motivate everyone in the league to just want to be better, to want to win championships.”

However, the scars Liberty suffered last year remain. Even with a return to the final series of the playoffs.

“We went to the finals last year and did nothing,” Stewart said.

But with two home games guaranteed, a longer break than their eventual Finals opponent, and the momentum of sending the two-time defending champions home, the Liberty are three wins away from ensuring a different outcome.