Becky Hammon Calls Out Issue Aces Must Fix to Avoid Getting ‘Smacked’ by Liberty
The Las Vegas Aces may have gotten the 107-99 win against the Chicago Sky, but they did not play up to Becky Hammon’s defensive standards.
“We didn’t beat somebody tonight,” Hammon said in the postgame media availability, per a video on the Aces’ YouTube page. “We outscored somebody, and that’s not the way I want to win games. We’ll take it. It’s a quality win. That team’s playing well, but we better fix our defense overnight here or else we’re going to get smacked by 30 in New York.”
The Aces already had one bad encounter with the New York Liberty this season. They lost 87-76, as the Liberty shot 46% from the field and 42% from deep and attempted twice as many free throws as the Aces. Their next meeting will be the Commissioner’s Cup Championship. While Hammon and a few Aces players have been adamant that they want to win every game, no matter the occasion, their next matchup comes with a $500,000 prize pool on the line and extra incentive to win.
New York is fresh off two disappointing losses against the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries. They will be hungry for a win and looking to exploit any weak spot they can find in the Commissioner’s Cup championship. So, the Aces will have to be especially locked in defensively and can’t rely on just outscoring the Liberty.
The Aces didn’t play great defense against the Sky
This was only the third time this season that the Aces gave up at least 99 points in a game. On average, they only allow opponents to score 86.4 points per game. Giving up more points than that has led to all of the Aces’ five losses this season.
The Sky got up 80 shots and made 46% of them. They also shot 38% from deep, won the rebounding battle, and outscored the Aces in the paint 54-38. The Aces didn’t have a good answer for Kamilla Cardoso and Azura Stevens, who both scored 24 points on pretty efficient shooting.
The Aces were able to come out with the win mostly because they made 15 more free throws than the Sky and got 76 points from A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray. But they also showed flashes of the defense Hammon wants to see.
“You see in glimpses when we play defense, and we’re able to hold teams in the teens, it becomes a separation factor for us,” Hammon said. “So, instead of one quarter like that, give me three out of four like that or four out of four. So, we’re still working our way there. We’re not supposed to be a perfect product right now.”
When the Aces can string together defensive stops and get the kind of offensive production out of the big three that they showed against the Sky, they are very difficult to beat.
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Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.