CHICAGO — The Las Vegas Aces are back to their old selves. And that ought to scare the hell out of the rest of the WNBA.
After falling two games below .500 on July 10 and being in danger of missing the playoffs, the Aces take an 11-game win streak into Atlanta on Wednesday night (7:30 p.m. ET, NBA TV). Their win over Chicago on Monday clinched a playoff spot, and they could move up to the No. 2 seed with a win against the Dream.
“People should be nervous,” Aces point guard Chelsea Gray told USA TODAY Sports. “I still don’t think that we’ve really hit our peak yet.”
The Aces, back-to-back champs in 2022 and 2023 and semifinalists last year, were quietly and then not so quietly written off after an awful start to the season. The low point came after the All-Star break, when they got walloped twice in eight days by the Minnesota Lynx.
The first loss, by 31 points, was bad. The second, by 53 points, was a cover-your-eyes-and-hide-the-children train wreck.
“I had a locker room full of frustration and my biggest goal was just keep everybody on the ship and keep the ship moving in the right direction. Nobody gets to jump overboard,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said.
From the outside, Las Vegas’ struggles were confounding. The Aces still had four starters from their 2023 championship team, including A’ja Wilson, the three-time MVP and most dominant player in the game, and Gray, one of the best point guards in WNBA history.
They’d added Jewell Loyd, a two-time WNBA champion with the Seattle Storm and 2023 scoring leader, and veteran Dana Evans. Hammon, in her fourth season after returning to the WNBA, is now one of the league’s longest-tenured coaches.
But the losses of Kelsey Plum and Alysha Clark, along with former assistants Natalie Nakase (Golden State Valkyries) and Tyler Marsh (Chicago Sky), meant this was a very different team. Even with their biggest names still around, this Aces team needed to establish its own rhythm.
“We spoiled a lot of people with the way we played and how we played, and they expected that year after year from us when it looks different, it was very different, for us. We had a completely new team from top to bottom, and that takes time,” Wilson told USA TODAY Sports.
Under Hammon, Las Vegas had become a fast-paced offensive juggernaut. The 2023 title team had four players who averaged 15 points or more, and the 2022 team had three. (Gray averaged 13.7 points in 2022.) The Aces had the league’s top offensive rating in 2022 and 2023, and were second last year.
This version of the Aces doesn’t have that same firepower. Or speed, much to Hammon’s irritation.
The Aces are currently seventh in scoring, at 82.8 points a game. They’re taking fewer shots (67.4) than they did in both 2023 (69.2) and 2022 (70.3), and their pace and offensive ratings are the lowest, by far, of Hammon’s tenure.
“None of it’s been intentional. I hate playing slow,” Hammon said. “I want that ball kicked up. I want to play faster. But at the end of the day, it’s like the personality of your kid. It’s going to be what it’s going to be. I can’t make it be something it’s not.”
The difference is this team is better defensively than Hammon’s previous Las Vegas teams.
“Their ownership and their accountability on that end of the floor with each other has really gone through the roof,” Hammon said. “Even with a high-powered offense, you have a bad shooting night, a lot of times you’re in jeopardy of losing games. And with this team we can shoot terrible and still win some games.”
Since that terrible, awful, no good loss to Minnesota, the Aces are allowing 77.8 points a game. That’s an improvement of more than five points from the first 28 games. They haven’t allowed anyone to score more than 87 points, after giving up 90 or more nine times in the early going.
The addition of NaLyssa Smith, acquired from Dallas right before the All-Star break, has only strengthened the Aces on the defensive end.
In Monday night’s game against the Chicago Sky, Las Vegas was clinging to a two-point lead, and its win streak, with 1:21 left to play. Smith delivered a monster block on Kamilla Cardoso’s close-range layup, then had the defensive rebounds on Chicago’s next two possessions as Las Vegas escaped with a 79-74 win.
“Back in what? Early May, June, we probably would’ve lost this game,” Aces guard Jackie Young said. “But I think it just shows our growth throughout the year and how we’re able to just come together as a team and grind out a win.”
After Wednesday’s game, the Aces’ eighth in 14 days, they will get a week off before playing Minnesota again. It will be a measure of how far Las Vegas has come and, improbable as it was just a month ago, a possible preview of the WNBA Finals.
“We’re just trying to hit our stride,” Gray said. “There’s times where we play a good 30-minute game. Or a 32-minute dominant game. We’re looking forward to 40.”
The rest of the W should consider itself warned.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.