Well-rested Liberty await road-tested Aces

The Las Vegas Aces are bound to have some new looks when they play Sunday afternoon against the host New York Liberty.

The Aces will be playing for the third time in four days.

“There’s going to be some rotation things,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. “It’s just too many minutes on our players. I’ll meet with my staff and discuss how that’s going to look.”

The Aces (22-10) have played twice since New York’s last game. They won Thursday night in overtime at Indiana and then fell 98-87 at Minnesota on Saturday afternoon despite Jackie Young’s 23 points.

Hammon said Saturday was one of the Aces’ poorest games of the year in terms of defensive execution.

“We’ve got to learn off paper and off film because there’s no time to practice,” she said. “There’s no space to practice because you’re traveling all the time. So we have to be quick learners.”

The Liberty (19-13) have won three consecutive games, including the past two at home against the Seattle Storm. The most recent of those games was a 92-86 victory on Wednesday as Breanna Stewart racked up 28 points to lead New York in scoring for the fourth time in a five-game stretch.

“I think this lineup is just getting really comfortable with one another,” said Stewart, who’s tied for third in WNBA scoring at 21.6 points per game. “… I just feel like the flow of the game is at a really great place right now.”

A recent trend for New York has been seeing some of its leads dwindle, but the Liberty have reacted well in those situations.

“We have to be able to respond, and we have,” Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said.

Aces center A’ja Wilson, the WNBA’s leading scorer at 26.6 points per game, was held to 16 points Saturday in an output that matched her season low. She shot an uncharacteristic 5-for-17 from the field..

“I thought they dared us to pass and we just didn’t pass the ball well enough,” Hammon said. “… I would describe it as swarm ball, and we didn’t do a good enough job of handling it.”

Las Vegas has lost consecutive games only once this season, falling to Los Angeles and Dallas in May.

The Liberty and Aces have split two games, with New York winning 87-76 on the road June 23 and Las Vegas claiming a 104-99 triumph on the same court July 30 with Wilson pouring in 33 points.

–Field Level Media