How the Aces adjusted for, slowed down Emma Meesseman and the Mystics

LAS VEGAS—Stagnant. Hesitant. Tentative.

WNBA viewers haven’t used those words often to describe an offensive performance from the 2019 Washington Mystics.

They did on Sunday.

Some of the team’s leaders did, too.

“We definitely felt a little stagnant,” Elena Delle Donne admitted postgame.

“We were kind of second-guessing and hesitating a lot for the majority of the game,” Kristi Toliver added. “When there’s hesitation, good things aren’t gonna happen. When we’re free and we’re loose and we’re just playing, that’s when we’re at our best.”

“I thought we passed up some open shots trying to get maybe even a better shot, and I’m not sure there was a better shot necessarily to get,” head coach and general manager Mike Thibault said. “I thought we were a little bit more tentative shooting the ball.”

Three teams are left standing in the 2019 WNBA Playoffs. The Connecticut Sun await their WNBA Finals opponent after sweeping the Los Angeles Sparks. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Aces forced a Game 4 with a Sunday win at home in their best-of-five series with the top-seeded Mystics.

Takeaways: Aces force a Game 4 with blowout win at home

Takeaways from a big win for the Las Vegas Aces over the Washington Mystics as they pull within 2-1 and force a Game 4 in their 2019 WNBA Playoff series.

One key development from Game 3: Emma Meesseman scored just six points on 3-of-8 shooting after 30- and 27-point performances to start the series.

How’d the Aces do it?

Toliver noted after Game 3 that the Aces are switching a lot more—a compliment to Washington’s dynamic and explosive offense. The Aces do have plenty of size on the floor, especially when Dearica Hamby plays next to A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage, to force tough shots over a quality contest and have been excellent on the defensive glass all season.

But Delle Donne, Meesseman and Toliver are world-class shot-makers. Would Vegas go so far as to say they welcome more one-on-one play from the Mystics when they get a big on a small (or vice versa)?

“Well, their strength is to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and take advantage of other team’s mistakes,” Aces head coach and president of basketball operations Bill Laimbeer said Monday. “That’s what we tried to do in the last game—limit our mistakes. How’s that for a non-denial denial?”

If Vegas wanted to win, they didn’t have much choice. Something had to change.

Hoping to recover to Meesseman in a pick-and-pop situation or generally chasing the Mystics around hoping to run them off the 3-point line is too tall a task. (They did have plenty of good moments switching prior to Game 3, but the absence of glaring miscommunications or mistakes leaving somebody uncovered for too long was evident.)

First, watch Hamby slide over onto Delle Donne in the post, scramming Kelsey Plum out to Meesseman at the top of the key.

The ball stayed on the same side of the floor as Meesseman eventually tried to drag Plum down there herself. Cambage dropping into the paint allows her to either discourage an entry pass or the eventual Delle Donne drive.

Delle Donne found LaToya Sanders, Cambage’s matchup, and the Aces managed to rotate from there. Kayla McBride bolted over to Sanders, and Wilson ran Natasha Cloud off the 3-point line.

All told, it was difficult to miss some potential cracks in the defense, especially as the Aces try to scram a guard out of a date in the post or a Washington big gives a target as they hold off a much smaller player.

Cloud got baseline on Wilson and drew Cambage’s help. The ball eventually got to Meesseman, but finding the player in that position right away may set them up for in an advantage situation to either catch and shoot or set off another drive-and-kick sequence.

Quick looks at two moments for Meesseman and Tianna Hawkins illustrate some of the passes the Mystics may have missed in Game 3.

All size mismatches won’t create similar expected value. Sanders posting McBride isn’t the same kind of threat Delle Donne or Meesseman would be, but it still did draw help.

That can turn into a much better look quite easily. Will those look any different Tuesday night? Will Washington hunt those to seek the kick-out pass and advantage that comes with it?

Similarly, Ariel Atkins trying to take Wilson off the bounce isn’t a devastating mismatch in Washington’s favor. The ball never changed sides of the floor, and they didn’t pick at a guard getting switched onto Meesseman.

Vegas getting some timely help, seen below as McBride digs down on Sanders working on Plum, can also swing in either direction.

Any opponent would rather see Cloud hoisting looks like that—with a solid effort by McBride to get out to contest—than some of Washington’s other shooters.

One more pass could have set Meesseman up, or Cloud can get some of the dribble penetration she probably won’t get in pick and roll because of Vegas’ switching by cutting or attacking more closeouts in Game 4.

There was a moment in Game 2 you may remember that was quite jarring. Delle Donne, somehow, was wide open to receive a skip pass and drill an open jumper. One of the biggest swings of the game occurred in a strikingly similar fashion.

Wilson switches onto Cloud and McBride sticks with the big that stayed high as she waves Carolyn Swords down. Hamby came across the lane, too, and Toliver fired a skip over to Delle Donne.

Sanders did a nice job to obstruct McBride’s path, and that’s a very long run for Hamby to get out in time. Delle Donne missed. McBride drilled a trey of her own in transition seconds later.

A six-point swing occurs just like that. Vegas took an eight-point lead and never looked back—that same margin was the closest the Mystics ever got the rest of the way.

Hanging over these playoffs and the effects the switching may have on Washington’s offense is Toliver’s ability to attack them.

She hasn’t been the same player torching people to get into the lane to score, but that ability to drill tough jump shots off the bounce still puts immense pressure on the Aces at all times.

Good, even great, contests will be rendered useless at times. She’s that good.

“She’s the best in the league at that shot—you know, kind of lull you to sleep, step back left, whack,” Kelsey Plum said Monday. “She does that a lot on mismatches with bigs. If she’s shooting that shot contested over a 6’5” player, there’s really not much that a defense can do about it.”

“I sit there and I swear,” Laimbeer added. “Because that’s what she does; that’s who she is.”

We’ve seen the Aces execute this approach enough for it to serve as a serious contributor toward a win. Delle Donne immediately pointed to what her team can do to attack more effectively.

“They’re a big defense,” she said after Game 3. “If you make them move, they’re gonna struggle on closeouts. And we were kind of just keeping it on one side of the floor trying to attack mismatches, but I think we need to move it, move it and then attack a mismatch.”

Game 4 will be the ultimate test for both teams: for the Aces to show they can continue to communicate, focus and execute defensively against an opponent that can punish the smallest slip-up in a hurry; for Washington’s offense to sustain their typical ball and player movement as they hunt some of those switches with precision; for Vegas to force a winner-take-all Game 5 and get 40 minutes closer to a Finals appearance in year one with Cambage; for the Mystics to slam the door shut and show that Sunday’s stagnation was nothing more than a blip en route to the title many have been expecting them to ultimately secure.

“Playoff basketball is not supposed to be easy for anybody,” Thibault said Monday. “I won’t comment on the other series [laughs]. It’s hard work to get to be a champion.

“Our team has learned that over the course of three years. We got our butts handed to us in the semis in Minnesota a couple years ago, and we worked harder to come back and get to the Finals last year. We learned from that and think we’re a better team. But you’ve still gotta go earn it on the court. There’s nothing guaranteed to you.

“Be who we are and they’ll be who they are, and we’ll see which is better tomorrow.”

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