After a commanding 102-77 win in Game 1, the Aces seemed to be in full control of their first-round series. The Storm bounced back, though, and handed the Aces an 86-83 loss in Game 2. Led by Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, Seattle stormed back from a 14-point deficit and forced a Game 3. The Fever also beat the Dream, so at least two first-round series will go to three games.
Las Vegas didn’t shoot as well from three as the Storm, sinking seven of their 19 attempts, while Seattle went 10-20. The Aces also didn’t get the same contributions from their supporting cast as in Game 1. Dana Evans and Cheyenne Parker-Tyus combined for 20 points off the bench in the Aces’ playoff opener, but only scored three combined points in Game 2.
After the game, Becky Hammon criticized another aspect of the Aces’ performance: their defense. Good defense and locking in on that end of the floor was one of the main reasons Las Vegas was able to turn its season around. Hammon didn’t see much of that defense.
“This is a shame. I feel like we let that one go with our soft defense down the stretch. Just soft,” Hammon said in the postgame press conference. She also added, “We guarded poorly at the 3-point line. Our hands were down. We were not disruptive…we weren’t even guarding…it’s trash. Garbage.”
Seattle’s star duo had an efficient game
A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young went toe-to-toe with the Storm’s star duo of Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins. Both duos combined for over half of their teams’ points. Diggins and Ogwumike were on fire from three, combining for eight of the Storm’s ten 3-point makes. Erica Wheeler made the other two. Meanwhile, Jewell Loyd was the only Aces player who hit more than one 3-pointer.
Ogwumike also grabbed 10 rebounds, and Diggins dished out seven assists. While Dominique Malonga and Erica Wheeler had good games off the bench, Ogwumike and Diggins fuelled the Storm’s win.
The Aces usually defend the three well
Seattle isn’t necessarily known as a consistently great 3-point shooting team. None of the Storm’s volume shooters shot better than 37.3% from three in the regular season.
On top of that, they were going up against one of the best 3-point defenses in the league. Over 44 regular-season games, the Aces only allowed opponents to make 7.2 threes per game and shoot 31.6% from behind the arc—the second-lowest mark in the league. That should have been a recipe for disaster for the Storm, but they managed to beat the Aces from three.
3-point defense wasn’t the Aces' only problem, though. In the last two-and-a-half minutes of the game, they committed a transition take foul, let Wheeler and Diggins get long twos, allowed Malonga to get an and-one on a fast break to secure Seattle the lead, and let Diggins get another bucket to push the Storm’s lead to three with 4.2 seconds left. Those mistakes were uncharacteristic for a team that had the second-best defensive rating in the league over the final 15 games of the regular season.