SAN FRANCISCO – A relaxed energy emanated from Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon as she exited Bakar Fitness & Recreation Center at UC San Francisco after a light practice on Tuesday.
Strolling toward the elevators and the team bus, she spoke exclusively with The Sporting Tribune about the 71-60 road defeat to the Golden State Valkyries in Game 1 of the WNBA playoff semifinals on Sunday.
With Chase Center — better known this time of year as Ballhalla — less than half a mile away, Hammon said that nothing about the Valkyries, coached by former understudy Natalie Nakase, surprised her. Contrarily, it was her team who played out of character.
“We kind of know who they are,” she stressed. “They’re the best defense in the league, and they have been all year.
“They’re a defense that you have to move. You can’t beat them in the first 8-10 seconds. I think we can do a better job offensively of attacking their pressure… They play with a competitive edge every possession; defensively, it’s a source of pride for them. So, we just have to be more sturdy in who we are, and we actually need to run [our] stuff.”
Beyond the obvious — the Aces being out-rebounded by a franchise-high margin of 27 boards, including 17 on the offensive glass — Hammon was most frustrated by her group going away from what usually makes their offense hum.
The Aces being held to just 34 percent shooting from the field (33% 3PT) is rare. Even rarer is the Big 3 combining for 51 points on a 17-for-50 clip. The 60 total points were a season-low for the defending champions.
Ballhalla is known for creating one of the league's most raucous atmospheres. However, Hammon doesn’t think that contributed to her offense falling out of sorts.
“We have to have a different mindset and intentionality on getting into [our] stuff,” she said. “I’ll always rely on Chelsea [Gray]’s playcalling, Jackie [Young]’s playcalling. But we have to get into some plays. We’re not just going to beat this team [playing] random.”
There are many reasons for Hammon’s quiet optimism heading into Game 2. She described the tweaks her team needs as “little.”
For one, the Aces aren’t new to this. They are 3-1 all-time after dropping the first game in a best-of-five series. Not to mention the three championships in the last four years. Tough times aren’t foreign on such consistent deep runs.
Two, Hammon was actually quite pleased with her team’s defense. The Valkyries shot 38 percent from the field and 29 percent from three. The next highest scorer after Gabby Williams — game-high 25 points — was Kaitlyn Chen with 11 off the bench.
Golden State's second unit out-scoring the Aces’ bench 27-7 was a problem. But one that Hammon believes can be eradicated with better application.
“It’s just a rinse and repeat; we really need the boards,” she added. “That’s the whole deal. Rebounding and then helping ourselves offensively, getting into the right spacing, sharing and moving the ball, body movement, player movement. [If we do that], we should be alright.”
Although Hammon was much more fiery in her postgame press conference after Sunday’s loss, she never lost sight of the narrow margin of defeat, despite how poorly she felt her side performed. “We played like ass and only lost by [11]. Dissect that however you want,” she uttered as she stepped off the podium.
Inside the building, you wouldn’t be faulted if you thought the Valkyries were winning a blowout at times. But the Aces never let the situation escalate that far. They retained their chance to steal home court right until the end.
Tomorrow, they get a clean slate. Ultimately, the road team’s job in a five-game series is to win one of the first two and then finish the job back at home. As bad as the opening defeat may have looked, the win-loss column only reads 0-1.
Hammon is emphasizing one thing ahead of Game 2: “Block out if you want to win the game. [That was the message] before Game 1, too, but we didn’t do it,” she laughed.
Everybody is expecting a better version of the Aces to come out of the gates Wednesday evening. The Valkyries will too. But the thing about having a team led by the four-time MVP Wilson, with Gray and Young backing her up, is that if the champs play to their full potential, there isn’t much an opponent can do to stop them.
But that also raises a key question: How hungry are the Aces to repeat? Because in Game 1, everyone — Gray included — could see that the Valkyries wanted it more.
Countless experience in these moments is worth nothing if the desire to do whatever it takes to win doesn’t match it. That’s what the Aces have to prove — not necessarily to themselves, but to those watching. That even though they’ve done this so many times before, they still have that fire burning within them to do it again.
And should they succeed, it may take another outing like we've never seen before — and might never see again — from Wilson, especially with Jewell Loyd’s status uncertain at the time of writing.
Loyd left the first game early in the third quarter with a lower leg issue, joining Stephanie Talbot (leg) — who has missed the last two — and Dana Evans as uncertainties ahead of Game 2.