UNCASVILLE, CT (Sept. 5, 2024)—The Las Vegas Aces (21-12) head east this week for their last big road trip of the regular season with 4 straight games away from the friendly confines of Michelob ULTRA Arena. The trip begins with a Friday, September 6 meeting with the Connecticut Sun (24-9) which is being televised nationally on ION.
Download Game Notes (final)
After a 2-4 start to the post-Olympics portion of their season, the Aces have won 3 straight games to move into sole possession of fourth place in the WNBA standings, one game ahead of the Seattle Storm (20-13). Las Vegas currently owns the tiebreaker between the teams, but they square off against one another one more time on September 17 in the Emerald City.
| W | L | GB | Home | Road | |
| New York * | 27 | 6 | — | Sept. 8 | |
| Connecticut * | 24 | 9 | 3.0 | Sept. 15 | Sept. 6 |
| Minnesota * | 24 | 9 | 3.0 | ||
| Las Vegas * |
21 | 12 | 6.0 | ||
| Seattle * | 20 | 13 | 7.0 | Sept. 17 | |
| Indiana * | 18 | 16 | 9.5 | Sept. 11, 13 | |
| Phoenix * | 17 | 17 | 10.5 | ||
| Chicago | 11 | 22 | 16.0 | ||
| Atlanta | 11 | 22 | 16.0 | ||
| Washington | 10 | 23 | 17.0 | ||
| Dallas | 9 | 24 | 18.0 | Sept. 19 | |
| Los Angeles | 7 | 26 | 20.0 | ||
| * Clinched Playoff Berth |
|||||
Connecticut jumped out to a 13-1 record to start the season fueled by the best defense in the league. The Sun were allowing opponents to score just 90.8 points per 100 possessions in the season’s early going, and were holding teams to just 29.0 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
They stumbled for a bit in the middle of the year, playing .500 basketball over their next 12 games as their opponents shot 34.7 percent from distance during that stretch. Connecticut’s perimeter defense is back on track over its last 7 contests (29.1%), but their overall defense hasn’t quite returned to its lofty beginnings (95.3 DER).
Offensively, the team’ 3-point field goal percentage has improved consistently throughout the year, but their offensive rebounding percentage, once amongst the best in the W, has decreased drastically.
| Sun | PPG | FG% | 3G% | OR% |
OER (OR) |
DER | OppPPG | OppFG% | Opp3G% |
| First 14 games (13-1) | 80.9 | .446 | .304 | .342 | 103.9 | 90.8 | 70.7 | .425 | .290 |
| Next 12 games (6-6) | 80.1 | .432 | .339 | .310 | 101.9 | 99.5 | 77.8 | .449 |
.347 |
| Last 7 games (5-2) | 79.4 | .436 | .344 | .267 |
99.3 | 95.3 | 75.9 | .434 | .291 |
The Sun pulled off the biggest in-season trade of 2024 when they acquired sharpshooter Marina Mabrey on July 17. Mabrey was Chicago’s second-leading scorer prior to the deal, and since the trade, she is making 45.7 percent of her shots from the field and 41.8 percent from 3-point range, while averaging 14.0 points per game.
DeWanna Bonner leads the Sun in scoring, and recently moved past Tamika Catchings into 4th place on the WNBA’s career scoring chart. She now has 7,411 carer points, and should pass Tina Thompson (7,488) in 3rd place by season’s end. The 6-time All-Star also ranks 16th in the league in rebounding (6.3 rpg).
Brionna Jones (13.4 ppg), DiJonai Carrington (12.9 ppg), Tyasha Harris (10.8 ppg) and Alyssa Thomas (10.7 ppg) give the Sun a half dozen double-digit scorers on the year. Thomas is also averaging 8.6 rebounds (9th in the W) and 7.6 assists (2nd) this season.
Since beginning the season with a 6-6 mark, the Aces are tied with the New York Liberty for the most wins in the league, going 15-6 since June 16. The improvement has come on both sides of the ball, but most prominently on defense, where their efficiency rating has improved by more than 5 points per 100 possessions
| Aces | PPG | FG% | 3G% | OER | DER | OppPPG | OppFG% | Opp3G% |
| First 12 games (6-6) | 86.9 | .428 | .344 | 105.4 | 104.2 | 85.7 | .445 | .393 |
| Last 23 games (15-6) | 87.6 | .473 | .348 | 107.0 | 98.7 | 80.5 | .427 | .342 |
A’ja Wilson continues to shatter records this season, and she has a few more in her sights that should come tumbling down over Las Vegas’ remaining 7 games. Her 909 points scored this year are just 30 behind Jewell Loyd’s WNBA record of 939 from the 2023 season. The two-time M’VP is averaging 34.8 points over her last 4 games, and her season scoring average of 27.5 points per game is more than 2 points better than the record 25.3 that Diana Taurasi averaged in 2006.
On Tuesday evening, the six-time All-Star tied the league mark for “stocks” in a season with 151. Brittney Griner originally set the mark in 2014 when she recorded 22 STeals and 129 blOCKS. Wilson has 62 and 89 respectively in 2024.
The South Carolina grad is also likely to become just 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 August 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 September 2, 2023 to May 14, 2024
Consecutive games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds with 8 straight from July 5 to August 18, 2024
On Sunday, September 1 at Phoenix, Wilson tied the WNBA record for most 40 point games in a career with 4 (Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart), and if she scores 30 or more points and grabs 10 or more rebounds Friday evening she will become the first player in league history to record 3 straight 30/10 games.
Out of all the players in WNBA history to average at least 20 points per game, Wilson’s 12.0 rebounds per game are the highest in league history, as are her 2.70 blocks per game.
Wilson’s 10.1 win shares are also far and away the most in the league—2.7 more than second place Breanna Stewart of New York and 4.1 more than Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier. To put that in perspective, Wilson’s season is nearly a DeWanna Bonner or Alyssa Thomas (4.3 win shares each in 2024) better than Collier’s this year, and almost a Caitlin Clark (2.9) better than Stewart’s.
Oh, and she is doing all of this while leading the WNBA in lowest turnover percentage committing a miscue on just 5.5 percent of the possessions she impacts. In fact, here’s a trivia question for you. Can you name all the players in the history of the WNBA who have averaged at least 20 points per game in a season, while also making 50 percent or more of their field goal attempts, and committing fewer than 1.5 turnovers per game? The complete list is here.
Sorry. We got off on a bit of an A’ja Wilson tangent there.
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-best offensive player of late. Over the last 11 games, she is averaging 12.4 points per game, while shooting 62.8 percent from the field and 50.0 percent from 3-point range. For the season she now ranks 4th in the league in field goal percentage at 53.3 percent and 11th in 3-point field goal percentage at 38.5 percent.
Kelsey Plum (17.6 ppg) and Jackie Young (16.8 ppg) are also both ranked in the top 15 in the league in scoring, but over the last 9 games, they are averaging 15.3 and 12.1 points respectively. Plum’s 89 made 3s are the 6th 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 7th in the league in assists at 5.4 per game after tying the franchise record when she dished out 14 dimes at Phoenix on September 1.
This is just the second meeting this season between the Sun and Aces. Las Vegas picked up a 85-74 win over Connecticut at Michelob ULTRA Arena on June 21. The final regular season game of the series is slated for September 15 back in Las Vegas.