ARLINGTON, TEXAS (August 26, 2024)—The Las Vegas Aces conclude their 3-game road trip this Tuesday with a 5 pm PT tip against the Dallas Wings. The game is being broadcast locally on Fox5 and the Silver State Sports & Entertainment Network.

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With Sunday’s 77-75 nail-biting win over Chicago (box score/recap), the Aces moved to within a half game of idle Seattle in the race for the No. 4 seed in the WNBA Playoffs. The Storm host the Washington Mystics Monday evening.

It has been a difficult year for the Wings who had high hopes entering 2024 following a 22-18 season a year ago. Dallas returned 6 of its 7 top scorers from 2023, but adversity came calling during the offseason.  Last year’s Most Improved Player Award winner Satou Sabally suffered a shoulder injury during the Olympic qualifying tournament in February and would miss the first half of the 2024 campaign.

The Wings won 3 of their first 5 contests, but subsequent injuries to Natasha Howard (broken foot, missed 12 games) and Maddy Siegrist (broken finger, 13 games) were too much for Dallas to overcome. They lost 11 straight at one point during the year, and are just 4-20 over their last 24 games

The 2023 version of the Wings boasted the 3rd most efficient offense in the league (106.9 OER) but the 8th most efficient defense (103.5 DER). Those rankings have dropped to 8th (100.5 OER) and 12th (110.5) in 2024.

Particularly problematic is the fact that opponents are connecting on 52.9 percent of their 2-point field goal attempts, and 47.3 percent of their overall field goal attempts. Dallas is the second best offensive rebounding team in the league (.346 OReb%), but the second worst defensive rebounding team (.680 DReb%).

Arike Ogunbowale (22.3 ppg) leads the Wings in scoring as she has done in each of her previous 5 seasons in the W. Upon her return Sabally picked up where her 2023 season left off, and is averaging 18.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists, while knocking down 11 of 22 shots from distance over 4 games.

Howard (17.2 ppg), Siegrist (12.8 ppg) and Teaira McCowan (11.4 ppg) give Dallas 3 additional double-digit scorers.

For the Aces, wins in 10 of 11 games between June 19 and July 14 improved their record to 16-7, but they have dropped 4 of their last 6. Las Vegas’ struggles have come on both sides of the ball, but most notably on the offensive end.

The Aces scored fewer than 80 points on 2 occasions during those first 23 games, but have done so 3 times over their most recent 6 contests.

Two-time M’VP A’ja Wilson is the front-runner for the award this year leading the league in scoring (26.6 ppg) and blocks (2.66 bpg) while ranking 2nd in rebounding (11.9 rpg), 3rd in steals (1.97 spg) and 9th in field goal percentage (.512). She is on pace to break Diana Taurasi’s nearly 2 decades old scoring record of 25.3 points per game. Wilson is also looking to become the first player in WNBA history to average 2 or more steals and blocks per game in the same season.

Kelsey Plum (18.0 ppg) and Jackie Young (17.1 ppg) are also both ranked in the top 15 in the league in scoring. Plum’s 82 made 3s are the 3rd most in the W this year, and she is on pace to become just the second player in league history to make 100 or more 3s in multiple seasons (Taurasi). In addition to her scoring, Young ranks 8th in the league in assists at 5.o per game.

Tiffany Hayes, acquired early in the season as a free agent, is making her case for the 6th Player of the Year award. In 20 games as a reserve, the 12-year veteran is averaging 9.0 points while connecting on 49.6 percent of her shots from the field and 34.7 percent from 3-point range.

The Aces won each of the first 2 meetings between the teams this season—95-81 on June 5 (box score/recap) and 104-85 on July 7 (box score/recap). They square off against one another one more time this year on September 19, the last day of the regular season, in Las Vegas.