SEATTLE, WA (Sept. 16, 2024)—Las Vegas’ magic number to clinch the 4 seed in the 2024 WNBA Playoffs is down to 1 following last night’s win over Connecticut. That means that any combination of 1 Aces victory or 1 Seattle loss would guarantee Las Vegas would host the First Round of the postseason.
The Aces also have a chance to secure the 3 seed. A pair of Las Vegas wins, coupled with 2 Connecticut losses would vault the Aces in front of the Sun, setting up a First Round match-up against the 6 seed Indiana Fever.
| W | L | GB | Home | Road | |
| Connecticut (3) | 27 | 11 | 4.0 | 9/17 vs. MIN, 9/19 vs/ CHI | |
| Las Vegas (4) |
25 | 13 | 6.0 | 9/19 vs. DAL | 9/17 at SEA |
| Seattle (5) | 24 | 14 | 7.0 | 9/17 vs/ LVA | 9/19 at PHO |
Las Vegas travels to Seattle Tuesday, Sept. 17, for a preview of the most-likely First Round opponent for both teams. Tip in the Emerald City is scheduled for 7 pm PT, and the game is being broadcast nationally on Amazon Prime, and locally on the Silver State Sports & Entertainment Network.
Download Game Notes (final)
The Storm are just a season removed from an 11-29 campaign and an 11th place finish in the standings. Jewell Loyd (19.7 ppg in 2024) and Ezi Magbegor (11.7 ppg) were two of the bright spots for Seattle a year ago, and the Storm’s basketball brain trust added the likes of Nneka Ogwumike (16.7 ppg) and Skylar Diggins-Smith (15.1 ppg) to the roster during the offseason, giving head coach Noelle Quinn a quartet of double digit scorers.
Despite that firepower, Seattle’s offensive efficiency rating of 102.0 is tied for 6th in the league. The Storm are netting just 43.4 percent of their field goal attempts on the year (8th in the W), and a league-low 28.6 percent of their shots from beyond the arc. Ogwumike is the only member of the team’s top 8 scorers making more than 30 percent of their shots from distance (40.6 3G%).
Seattle is making a league-high 84.0 percent of its shots from the free throw line, and the team’s turnover percentage of 16.1 percent is second only to the Aces’ 14.3 percent.
The Storm’s defense is ranked 4th in the league, allowing opponents to score 96.4 points per 100 possessions. Seattle’s opposition is connecting on 42.4 percent of its shots from the floor (2nd lowest in the WNBA), and 33.0 percent of its shots from 3-point range (5th lowest). The Storm also force a league-high 16.5 turnovers per game.
Las Vegas is 7-1 over its last 8 games, and that hot streak has been powered mostly by the team’s defense. The Aces have held each of their last 8 opponents below 80 points for a league-low average of 73.0 points per game during that stretch. The opposition is also connecting on just 29.9 percent of its shots from 3-point range over the last 8 contests.
M’VP front-runner A’ja Wilson etched her name in the record books for the umpteenth time this season as last week she broke the WNBA single-season scoring record, She now has exactly 1’000 points on the year with 2 games to play.
Diana Taurasi’s nearly 2-deccades-old single-season scoring average of 25.3 points per game has officially fallen, as even if Wilson is held scoreless over the last 2 games of the regular season, her scoring average would only drop from 27.0 to 25.6 points.
The South Carolina grad is also just 2 blocks away from becoming the third player in WNBA history to block 100 or more shots in a season, joining Brittney Griner (3 times) and Margo Dydek (4 times).
Already this season, Wilson has set or tied WNBA records for …
Consecutive games scoring 20 or more points with 20 straight from Aug. 28, 2023, to June 27, 2024
Consecutive games scoring 25 or more points with 8 straight from May 25 to June 13, 2024
Consecutive games scoring 30 or more points with 4 straight from Sept. 2, 2023, to May 14, 2024
Consecutive games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds with 8 straight from July 5 to Aug. 18, 2024
Wilson is also likely to break the WNBA record for win shares in a season. She has 10.7 heading into Tuesday’s game—2.2 more than second place Breanna Stewart of New York (8.5) and 3.6 more than Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier. To put that in perspective, Wilson’s season is a Jewell Loyd (3.6) better than Collier’s this year, and a Dianna Taurasi (2.2) better than Stewart’s.
And she is doing all of this while leading the WNBA in lowest turnover percentage, committing a miscue on just 5.3 percent of the possessions she impacts—the 4th lowest percentage in league history.
Leading Sixth Player of the Year candidate Tiffany Hayes, who signed as a free agent with Las Vegas on May 31, has been the Aces second-most efficient offensive player of late. Over the last 16 games, she is averaging 10.7 points per game, while shooting 54.2 percent from the field and 48.8 percent from 3-point range. For the season she now ranks 14th in the league in field goal percentage at 49.8 percent and 13th in 3-point field goal percentage at 39.5 percent.
Kelsey Plum (11th, 17.7 ppg) and Jackie Young 16th, (15.8 ppg) are also both ranked in the top 20 in the league in scoring. Plum’s 103 made 3s are tied for the 4th most in the W this year, and she recently became one of just 5 players in league history to make 100 or more 3s in multiple seasons (Taurasi, Arike Ogunbowale, Kelsey Mitchell, Sabrina Ionescu). In addition to her scoring, Young ranks 7th in the league in assists at 5.3 per game.