Back-to-back defending champs Las Vegas​ will attempt to stave off a sweep in tonight's 2024 WNBA semifinals, as twin losses in New York have the Aces scrambling for a vital Game 3 win at home.

The No. 4-seed Aces, who've failed to register a win against top-seeded New York in 2024, will face a Liberty team who are 16-4 on the road this season. Las Vegas, on the other hand, have lost seven games at home and six away.

Aces center A'ja Wilson dribbles against the Liberty's Breanna Stewart in the 2024 WNBA semifinals.
Breanna Stewart's Liberty and A'ja Wilson's Aces will square off for Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals tonight. (David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images)

Las Vegas will be further shorthanded in Game 3 after center Kiah Stokes was ruled out with a concussion late Thursday evening.

Acknowledging that her team faces "an uphill battle," Aces head coach Becky Hammon told reporters after their Game 2 loss that they "fully intend on pushing to five games."

Should the Aces bounce back to take the best-of-five series, Las Vegas will become the first team to ever reach the WNBA Finals after falling to 0-2 in the semis.

A packed Mohegan Sun Arena waits for Connecticut to tip off
Minnesota will need a road win over Connecticut to extend their WNBA semifinals run. (Chris Marion/NBAE via Getty Images)

Connecticut brings it home

Sitting at an even 1-1 split, the No. 2-seed Lynx and No. 3-seed Sun will take their highly competitive WNBA semifinal series to Connecticut tonight, where the pressure's on for Minnesota to grab a game on the road.

The Lynx must win at least one game on the Sun's home court to extend the series to five — or possibly secure a four-game victory.

The Sun are just as good at home as they are on the road this year, going 14-6 in both scenarios this season. The Lynx are also 14-6 on the road, but failed to protect home court in last Sunday's semifinals Game 1.

How to watch Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals tonight

Game 3 between the Sun and the Lynx tips off at 7:30 PM ET, with live coverage on ESPN2. The Aces and the Liberty follow at 9:30 PM ET, also airing on ESPN2.

The Las Vegas Aces want to take their talents to a different type of game –”Family Feud.”

On Sunday, Kiah Stokes posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the game show, asking if there was any way the two-time reigning WNBA champions could be featured as contestants. She even wanted to take the pitch directly to host Steve Harvey.

“Can we go on ‘Family Feud’??” she wrote, speaking about the Aces. “Who got Steve’s number?”

The Aces have had quite the championship tour, which already has included attending Usher’s residency in Las Vegas. And everyone – including the Aces’ social media admin – appeared to be on board with a potential “Family Feud” appearance.

“Let’s goooooo!! I’m down someone let Steve know!!” A’ja Wilson wrote.

“Count me in!!!!” Alysha Clark added.

“Oh yeah I guess I shoulda asked if y’all would be down,” Stokes responded.

Meanwhile, the Aces kept tweeting out Steve Harvey reactions with various captions, including calling out Sydney Colson – whose answers would undoubtedly warrant a classic Harvey reaction.

“We would be doin’ the most,” Colson wrote Monday.

The Las Vegas Aces claimed their second consecutive WNBA title Wednesday night, with the 70-69 win sealing a 3-1 series victory over the New York Liberty.

A’ja Wilson led the way for the back-to-back champions, earning the Finals MVP award. The 27-year-old forward averaged 23.8 points and 11.3 rebounds per game in the postseason heading into Game 4 of the championship series.

Las Vegas becomes the first team to win back-to-back titles since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001 and 2002. In 2022, the Aces won their first title in franchise history, besting the Connecticut Sun in four games. In 2023, they repeated the feat, overcoming New York’s superteam lineup despite being hobbled by injuries.

The Aces formed a superteam of their own with the signing of two-time MVP Candace Parker ahead of the 2023 season. But Parker missed the second half of the season after undergoing foot surgery in July.

Still, the Aces finished with a 34-6 record in the regular season to surpass the 2014 Phoenix Mercury (29-5) for the most wins in WNBA history. And Parker offered her support from the sidelines throughout the postseason run.

The No. 1 seed entering the playoffs, Las Vegas lost just one game during its championship run. The Aces swept the Chicago Sky, 2-0, in the first round, and then the Dallas Wings, 3-0, in the semifinals.

In Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, an 87-73 loss to the Liberty, two Aces starters — 2022 Finals MVP Chelsea Gray and defensive specialist Kiah Stokes — sustained foot injuries, which kept them out of Game 4. But Las Vegas still managed to close out the series at New York’s Barclays Center.

Kelsey Plum thinks the Las Vegas Aces will be just fine in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, even without two of their key pieces.

Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes both will be absent from the Aces’ starting lineup Wednesday night against the New York Liberty after sustaining foot injuries in Game 3. Gray attended practice on a scooter Tuesday, while Stokes was on crutches, and both are questionable to return in the series.

For defending champions, who dominated Games 1 and 2 before losing Game 3, the losses of Gray and Stokes represent major blows.

“It’s brutal,” Las Vegas guard Kelsey Plum said. “You watch them work so hard and get to this point, and you want it for them. So when they go down, it hurts. And there’s no replacing either of them. There’s no magic wand you can wave. There’s just not, and I would be ignorant to tell you that there is. It hurts, absolutely.”

Still, the Aces aren’t letting it get them down. Head coach Becky Hammon joked about having Sydney Colson climb on the back of Liberty center Jonquel Jones as part of the team’s defensive strategy. She also made a remark about bringing back injured star Candace Parker, though she has since been ruled out for Game 4.

And Gray noted that Las Vegas’ system sets them up to be able to replace any given player at any given moment.

“What actually is a positive thing about that is that our system is so fluid that any given person at any given time can be at the top and a different person can be in the corner. So you’re going to see a lot more times where Jackie and KP are at the top since I’m not out there. So our system being fluid actually really helps in that way.”

Plum made a comment about the Aces’ season, which has been marked by dominance on the court but controversies off it. Aces guard Riquna Williams was arrested on domestic violence charges in July; though the charges were dropped in September, she has not rejoined the team. And former Aces forward Dearica Hamby has filed a discrimination complaint against the team for trading her away because of her pregnancy.

“This team has responded all year,” Plum said. “We’ve been through a lot. We’ve been hurt, sued, arrested; you name it, we’ve done it. I’m confident in our group, and we’ve gone through a lot of adversity. We’ll be ready.”

A’ja Wilson echoed Plum’s sentiments about the Aces’ ability to rebound, but she called replacing Gray “a challenge.”

“That’s the head of our snake. That’s our leader. So that’s a challenge, obviously,” she said. “This is something that we’re just going to grind out like we’ve always been. And we’re used to being in the trenches, so at this point, we’ve just got to climb our way out.”

Chelsea Gray is unavailable for Game 4 of the WNBA Finals with a foot injury, Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon told reporters Tuesday.

Kiah Stokes also will miss Game 4 against the New York Liberty with a foot injury. Both players are questionable to return to the best-of-five championship series, in which the Aces hold a 2-1 lead.

Gray went down with a left foot injury during Game 3 of the WNBA Finals. The 31-year-old point guard had to be helped into the locker room. Following the game, Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon said she did not have an update.

“I’ll let you know when we know,” she told reporters, noting that “no one person will replace” Gray if she were to miss more time in the best-of-five series. Instead, the Aces will fill the gap left by Gray by committee.

The reigning WNBA Finals MVP, Gray had 11 points before her departure in the fourth quarter Sunday. Upon reaching the bench, she appeared to say that her “foot popped,” and she entered Tuesday’s practice on a scooter.

She is averaging 16.3 points, 7.4 assists and 5.0 rebounds for Las Vegas this postseason. In the Aces’ two victories to start the series, she scored a combined 34 points to go along with 20 assists and 12 rebounds.

Stokes, who starts for the Aces as a defensive specialist, entered Tuesday’s practice on crutches. She “woke up in pain,” she told reporters, and is waiting “to see what the doctor says” about the injury.

No bench? No problem, at least for the Las Vegas Aces.

In Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, the Las Vegas Aces took a 99-82 win against the New York Liberty. Of those 99 points, 91 came from four Aces starters.

Kelsey Plum (26), Jackie Young (26), Chelsea Gray (20) and A’ja Wilson (19) dominated for Las Vegas, which outscored New York by 20 points in the second half to take the 1-0 series lead. No four players have combined for more points in a WNBA Finals game, per ESPN’s Alexa Philippou.

The Aces’ other eight points came from Alysha Clark, the first player off the bench for the defending champions. Clark played 28 minutes; the rest of the Aces’ bench played just five minutes combined.

Kiah Stokes, the fifth starter for Las Vegas, is a defensive specialist, often trading places with Clark depending on possession. In Game 1, Stokes finished with zero points, but she had five rebounds and three assists.

Before Candace Parker’s injury, she held Stokes’ role as the second post player in the starting lineup alongside Wilson, averaging 9.0 points and 5.4 rebounds. Yet even with Parker on the sidelines, the Aces’ starting lineup is fearsome for opponents, as they proved again Sunday.

With the victory, Las Vegas has won its first six games of the 2023 postseason. The No. 1 seed Aces swept the No. 8 seed Chicago Sky and the No. 4 seed Dallas Wings to reach the championship series. Five other teams in WNBA history have won their first six postseason games, and all went on to win the title, per ESPN Stats & Info.

The confetti had barely settled from the Las Vegas Aces’ 2022 WNBA championship. Yet Becky Hammon already was evaluating ways in which her team could improve.

Sure, the Aces had just hoisted the trophy. But a new season was brewing, bringing with it new challenges and, more importantly for the Las Vegas coach, new opportunities to get better.

When she thinks of that 2022 squad, one weakness stands out: defense.

“Being an average defensive team wasn’t good enough,” Hammon said. “So I’ve challenged them. These women are not average at anything they put their hands in. So why would we settle for anything less than great defense every night?”

This season is different. The Aces hold a 13-1 record heading into Thursday’s superteam clash with the New York Liberty. They started the year with a seven-game winning streak, which included close calls against the Dream (87-92), the Fever (84-80) and the Sun (90-84) – but in each instance, the Aces held off their opponents, and in every case, it was because of their defense.

“A goal of ours is to stay top three of the league defensively,” A’ja Wilson said. “That’s where we need to aim, and we’re trying our best to do that.”

The Aces finally dropped a game on June 8, a 94-77 loss to the Connecticut Sun. Of that game, Hammon said the Sun “kicked our ass,” on both ends of the floor. Las Vegas gave up its highest point total of the season, allowing the Sun to shoot 57.1% from 3-point range. A career-high 41 points from DeWanna Bonner didn’t help.

But after the dismal performance, the Aces bounced back with six consecutive wins, many of them fueled by – you guessed it – defense. The streak included a 96-63 win against the Seattle Storm and a 93-62 win against the Minnesota Lynx in back-to-back games, their lowest point totals allowed this season.

In 2022, the Aces gave up 84.1 points per game, which ranked ninth in the 12-team league. This season, that number is down to 77.4, good for second-best in the WNBA. It wasn’t a major offseason overhaul that led to the improvement but rather a combination of key signings and a change in mindset.

Candace Parker was, of course, the Aces’ most high-profile signing during the offseason, and the 16-year veteran provided an instant defensive upgrade. At 6-4, she makes for a scary defensive combination with Wilson inside, but she also can match up with guards on the perimeter.

While the 2020 Defensive Player of the Year may be nearing the end of her career, she’s still a skilled defender, and her 1.5 steals per game so far this season is her highest mark since 2017.

Alysha Clark also joined Las Vegas in the offseason, and while not as high-profile as Parker, she also is another experienced player with a strong defensive skill set. A two-time All-WNBA Defensive team selection, Clark allows the Aces to play a smaller lineup, either to combat guard-heavy opponents or to bring pressure in the backcourt that speeds up the game.

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Offseason addition Alysha Clark helps the Aces flex their defensive muscles. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

And 6-3 center Kiah Stokes is making an impact off the bench, playing more minutes – up from 15.3 to 18.5 – and averaging a career-high 1.5 blocks per game. Wilson, last season’s DPOY, points to Stokes as the player that holds the Aces’ defense together.

“Kiah’s the anchor to our defense,” Wilson told the Hartford Courant on June 7. “A lot of people say that it’s me, but I pass that to Kiah 100%. She is just always at the right place at the right time and I trust her, like guards trust us and then I trust Kiah when she’s behind me. So she literally holds it down.”

The offseason additions and Stokes’ increased role takes care of the X’s and O’s of the team’s defensive attack, but a large part of Las Vegas’ improvement comes from approach.

The 40-game WNBA schedule comes with quick turnarounds, and teams often play with just one day between games. The Aces take advantage of their limited practice, devoting even the smallest windows of time to defensive drills.

“Even though we don’t have a ton of time, we’ll just do a quick drill to make sure people are talking and active, and being as physical as we can be,” Sydney Colson said.

The team’s mindset has changed too, with defensive assignments becoming more of a priority. Everyone has turned up the intensity, and Hammon says that early in the season when Kelsey Plum wasn’t shooting well, it was the guard’s defense that kept her in games.

The team is bigger and stronger thanks to additions in the offseason, but if everyone isn’t contributing on defense, then there are breakdowns.

The goal for the Aces? Zero breakdowns.

“Sometimes things change game by game,” Colson said. “But it’s also the MO that we have. We want to be more physical, we want to compete on every possession.”

Las Vegas Aces center Kiah Stokes is expected to sign a deal with the Atlanta Dream, Winsidr reports.

Stokes played her first five WNBA seasons with the New York Liberty, drafted 11th overall by the team in 2015. The Aces signed the center in July of 2021, two days after she was waived by the Liberty.

In her 15 appearances with Las Vegas, Stokes averaged 1.5 points and 6.1 rebounds in 20.5 minutes per game.

The Atlanta Dream finished the 2021 season 11th in the league standings with an 8-24 record.