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The Aces’ Arena Went Pitch Black While Potential Game-Winning Shot Was in the Air

The Aces won in dramatic fashion on Thursday night, but needed to survive a wild, and extremely dark final moment.

Tyler Lauletta

The Aces punched their ticket to the WNBA semifinals with a win over the Storm.
The Aces punched their ticket to the WNBA semifinals with a win over the Storm. / ESPN
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The WNBA playoffs provided plenty of drama on Thursday night.

First, the Fever upset the Dream with the help of a last-second defensive stop that sent Indiana through to the semifinals. Not to be outdone, the nightcap between the Aces and Storm also delivered, with both teams battling until the final whistle.

While the Aces had led for most of the game, the Seattle stormed back in the fourth quarter and trailed by a single point on the final possession with a chance to win the game.

Erica Wheeler missed a go-ahead jumper with four seconds left, but Skylar Diggins pulled down the offensive rebound and passed to Gabby Williams on the baseline, who appeared to have possibly beaten the buzzer to get the shot out of her hands.

Did the ball go in? It was kind of hard to tell, because whoever was working the lights at the Michelob ULTRA Arena flipped a switch to cut to black and start the party.

Upon review, it is pretty clear that Williams was still touching the ball when the clock hit zero, so the shot would not have counted if it had gone in, but in the moment, the quick flip of the lights was a jarring blitz into Aces’ celebration before the result felt officially official.

It was a perplexing sequence, to say the least.

It all worked out for the Aces this time, but man, if that shot was released a millisecond sooner and had just a bit more arc on it, Las Vegas might have accidentally been celebrating their own elimination from the postseason.

The Aces are now set to face off against the Fever in the WNBA semifinals. Whoever is working the lights might want to practice some meditation between now and tipoff.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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