Aces vs. Dream: Jackie Young's Third Career Triple-Double Powers 109-87 Rout in Atlanta

Jackie Young needed one more assist. There were 2:21 left, her team was up 18, and the 17,044 people at State Farm Arena had long since stopped asking the basketball gods for favors. She found Brianna Turner for a layup, and that was that: 28 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists, the third triple-double of her career.

The Aces flattened the Atlanta Dream 109-87 on Monday night, and the final score almost undersells how rude it was. Las Vegas shot 62 percent, led by as many as 28, and ended a five-game Atlanta winning streak two days after dropping a one-point game in Chicago. The Aces don't do hangovers. They hand them out.

A Fair Fight for Almost 14 Minutes

For a little while this was the game everybody wanted. Atlanta finished the first quarter with a flourish, going on a 9-0 run that carried into the second and turned a 22-17 deficit into a 26-22 lead. The Dream stretched it to 29-24, their biggest cushion of the night, and the building was loud. Every lead change and tie in this game happened in the first 13:51.

Then a Young three and an and-one from A'ja Wilson started a 15-2 run that made it 39-31, and Las Vegas was gone. A 10-0 burst pushed the lead to 51-36, and the Aces went to the half up 55-38 after winning the second quarter 33-14. Young had 14 of those 33 by herself.

The third quarter was more of the same with a different lead scorer. Wilson had 11 in the period, NaLyssa Smith added eight, and another 8-0 run turned 76-56 into 84-56. It was 86-62 after three. Atlanta won the fourth 25-23, a fact that goes in the books and nowhere else. The final minutes belonged to the benches, including Mai Yamamoto, whose 24-footer with 18.3 seconds left gave her the first points of her career.

Young Did Everything, Wilson Did the Rest

Young shot 11 of 17 from the field and 4 of 7 from three, and 10 of her 11 rebounds came on the defensive end, which is a strange thing to find next to 28 points and 10 assists. Four turnovers were the only smudge on a plus-26 night. The ninth assist came on a Smith layup at 3:29 and the 10th on Turner's at 2:21, which is about as casual as a triple-double gets.

Wilson's line was almost boring in its efficiency: 23 points on 8 of 11 shooting, 6 of 6 at the line, six rebounds, four assists and three blocks. The Aces list her plus-38 as a career high. One of those blocks was her 587th, which moved her past Lauren Jackson for sixth on the WNBA's career list. She has also scored in double figures in a league-leading 53 straight games, per the team, which at this point is less a streak than a utility bill. It shows up every time. She has also reached 20 points in 11 straight, the second-longest such run in the league right now.

Smith scored 18 on 9 of 16 without attempting a three. Chelsea Gray added 17 points and six assists without committing a foul, and the team says she has now had at least four assists in a league-high 18 straight games. Jewell Loyd knocked down two threes off the bench. Every Aces player who checked in scored, all 12 of them.

Angel Reese did her thing for Atlanta: 23 points and 16 rebounds, six of them offensive, for her 20th double-double of the season. According to the AP, five of her last six games have been 20-point double-doubles. Rhyne Howard added 19 on 7 of 13. Nobody else reached double figures, and the shooting around them was a problem. Allisha Gray went 2 of 10, missing all six of her threes, and Jordin Canada was 2 of 7. Brionna Jones did give Atlanta nine points and seven rebounds off the bench.

The Second Quarter Was the Whole Story

If you want one stretch, it's those 10 minutes before halftime. After coughing up six turnovers in the first quarter, Las Vegas committed none in the second and shot 13 of 20. Atlanta went 1 of 9 from three in the same span, and what had been a coin toss turned into a 17-point problem.

The turnover fix mattered more than it sounds. Those six early giveaways cost the Aces 12 points, and they surrendered only two more off miscues the rest of the way, according to the team. Once Las Vegas stopped handing out free baskets, the Dream had nothing to lean on, because they weren't going to shoot their way back.

Inside the Damage

• 44 of 71: Las Vegas from the field, plus 10 of 19 from three.
• 4 of 24: Atlanta from deep, a rough 17 percent.
• 62-52: The Aces' edge in the paint.
• 19-6: Atlanta's edge in second-chance points, thanks to 12 offensive rebounds. The Dream won the glass and still lost by 22.

Twelve Road Wins and Counting

Las Vegas is 21-9 and 12-4 on the road, and it's now 2-0 against Atlanta this season after an 85-84 win in May. The trip continues Thursday at Indiana against the 19-11 Fever, a sterner test of whether this offense keeps traveling.

Atlanta falls to 18-11, 10-5 at home, and gets a quick chance to start over when Phoenix visits on Wednesday. A five-game winning streak doesn't vanish from the memory because of one bad Monday, but the Dream will want to forget those 3-point numbers immediately.

The House Always Wins

Atlanta walked in on a heater: five straight wins, a loud building, everything falling for a quarter and change. Anyone who has spent a weekend in Las Vegas knows how this goes. The casino lets you feel great for exactly as long as it's useful, in this case 13 minutes and 51 seconds. Then the floor manager shows up in a red jersey with a triple-double and takes back everything you thought you'd won.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Team notes from the Las Vegas Aces. Game context as reported by the Associated Press.