Las Vegas Aces eye historic third WNBA title in four years

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Not only does Phoenix await the Aces in the WNBA Finals, but so does history.

Las Vegas has the opportunity to become champions for the third time in four years, a feat surpassed only by the Houston Comets, who won the league’s first four titles in 1997-2000

The second-seeded Aces, who won championships in 2022 and 2023, open the best-of-seven Finals by hosting the No. 4 Mercury on Friday.

But minutes after getting past No. 6 Indiana 107-98 in overtime on Tuesday night, coach Becky Hammon wasn’t ready to think about the potential history the Aces can make.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Hammon said. “We’re just trying to make it through a quarter at a time. Look, we have a special group here. I’m not surprised that they’re here because I know who they are. I know how they’re built.”

The Aces beat the Mercury in three of their four meetings this season, including both in August when Las Vegas was in the midst of compiling its 16-game winning streak to close the regular season. It’s tied with the second-longest streak in league history with the 2014 Mercury.

The Aces are making their fourth Finals appearance in six years. They lost to Seattle in the COVID-19 bubble Finals of 2020, but then defeated Connecticut in 2022 and New York in 2023, securing both clinching victories on the road.

In defeating the Liberty, the Aces became the first team since Los Angeles in 2001-02 to win back-to-back titles.

Then this year, A’ja Wilson became the first four-time MVP. She was key to lifting the Aces out of a rut with that late charge in the regular season.

“When you’ve been in the trenches and you really don’t know what is the problem or you don’t know what’s wrong, you’re trying to figure out answers,” Wilson said. “At the beginning of every season, we write out our goals and our goals are always to win a championship. That’s everybody. But to get there, the road, we weren’t expecting it to look like it is.

“It definitely does feel a lot different than the ones before.”