There’s not many ways you can reasonably expect to build off a 24-point, 20-rebound performance like A’ja Wilson had on Wednesday. Well, that’s unless you’re Wilson herself.
The W’s best player continued her run of unprecedented dominance in the Aces’ 84-70 win in Atlanta on Friday night, scoring 33 points and while grabbing, remarkably, another 18 rebounds in a worthy encore to Wednesday’s performance.
Oh, and she had five blocks too. Her second game with five blocks in 10 days.
In total, Wilson became the first player in WNBA history to register 25 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks and three made three-pointers in one game.
“I'm on to the next thing immediately,” Wilson said. “I feel like that's how you know you're doing pretty well, because you have random stats like that. It’s like, girl, what? But no, I'm appreciative. I'm blessed. But it's something that I don't really think about because I'm just doing my job.”
On adding three-pointers to her arsenal seemingly out of nowhere this season, Wilson said, “It’s a part of my game that I'm continuing to add and work on. It’s something that I don't think it comes as a surprise to my teammates because I do it in practice. But I'm just going to always just do it at the right time in the flow of the offense.”
Wilson received the majority of her support from the usual suspects, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum. Young scored 19 points in addition to six assists, while Plum chipped in 17 points with seven assists and five rebounds to aide the Aces’ cause.
Wilson’s performance comes the night after she won Best Female Athelte and Best WNBA player at the 2024 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
Wilson’s celebrations with her teammates went viral, as many off-the-court moments captured by the team do. It’s hard to imagine the giddiness will end after what she did again on Friday.
The Aces are back in action in the nation’s capital on Friday, with tip-off against the Mystics in DC coming at 4:30 p.m.