Aces vs. Sky: A'ja Wilson Posts a WNBA-First 30 Points, 15 Rebounds, 4 Steals and 3 Blocks in 107-99 Win

Thirty points, 15 rebounds, four steals, three blocks. Go ahead and search the entire history of the WNBA for that box score line. You will find exactly one game, and it happened Sunday afternoon at the United Center.

A'ja Wilson's stat-sheet unicorn carried the Las Vegas Aces past the Chicago Sky 107-99, and the AP credits her as the first player in league history to hit all of those marks in one game. Chicago scored 99, made more field goals than Las Vegas and owned the paint. It didn't matter, because Wilson kept walking to the free-throw line and her teammates kept turning every Sky mistake into a problem.

Sixty-One by Halftime

This started like both teams had a dinner reservation. The teams traded 31 apiece in the first quarter, an opening that suggested neither defense had clocked in for its shift.

The second quarter is where it turned. Las Vegas put up another 30, Chicago managed 19, and the Aces went to the locker room up 61-50. The game's 15 lead changes were all done by then, and Chicago would spend the rest of the afternoon looking at the back of the Aces' jerseys.

The Sky had it down to seven at 71-64 with 4:42 left in the third, and that's when Las Vegas landed the one real flurry of the day, an 8-0 run in about a minute that made it 79-64. It was 86-73 going to the fourth, and the Aces' lead would top out at 18.

Chicago, to its credit, kept swinging. The Sky won the fourth 26-21, and Skylar Diggins' 24-foot 3 with 2:52 left made it 99-93, the closest anyone got in the final five minutes. Wilson answered with two free throws at 2:28. Jackie Young hit a 6-foot pull-up at 2:02, Chelsea Gray went to the line and made two, and Wilson's last pair of foul shots at 43.2 seconds pushed it to 107-97. Azura Stevens' driving layup got the final word, not that anyone was still arguing about the result.

A Line Nobody Had Ever Seen

Wilson went 8-of-14 from the field and 13-of-16 at the line in 34 minutes, with four offensive rebounds and 11 on the defensive end. Eight of her points came in the final five minutes, on one layup and six free throws, and that's what the great ones do when a team starts creeping back: they make the next possession boring. She did turn it over four times, but when you're also getting four steals and three blocks, nobody's filing a complaint. She has now reached 20 points and 10 rebounds in the same game 99 times in her career. Only Tina Charles, with 109, has done it more.

Young was nearly as good and a lot more efficient: 28 points, eight assists and five rebounds on 9-of-14 shooting, 4-of-6 from 3 and 6-of-6 at the line, with one turnover in 36 minutes. Gray had 18, six rebounds and eight assists while going 6-of-9. Chennedy Carter scored 11 in 16 minutes off the bench. Jewell Loyd took all seven of her shots from deep and made two, which on most nights would be a problem and on this one barely registered.

Chicago got big games from its front line. Stevens scored 24 on 8-of-14 shooting with three 3s, and Kamilla Cardoso matched her with 24 on 10-of-15 plus eight rebounds. Elizabeth Williams gave the Sky 10 points in 10 minutes, Sydney Taylor added 14, and Courtney Vandersloot had eight assists off the bench while scoring five without making a field goal. The tough one was Diggins, who finished with seven points on 2-of-11 shooting and went 1-of-5 at the line.

The Line Was the Difference

The turning point of this game didn't happen at one moment. It happened every time a whistle blew. Las Vegas went 31-of-37 at the line and Chicago went 16-of-25, a 15-point gap in a game decided by eight. Wilson alone made 13 free throws, three fewer than the entire Sky roster.

Look at everything else and the Sky have a case. They took 80 shots to the Aces' 63 and made four more of them. They grabbed 11 offensive rebounds to six and piled up 54 points in the paint. But the Aces shot 52 percent, won the 3-point column by a single make and kept getting to the stripe. Chicago also committed 26 fouls and picked up a technical, while both teams turned it over exactly 11 times, so possessions weren't the issue. Free points were. Field goals can win you an argument. Free throws win you the game.

Numbers Worth Yelling About

• 31-of-37 vs. 16-of-25: The free-throw gap, and the whole story.
• 37 vs. 33: Made field goals, with Chicago ahead. It still lost by eight.
• 54-38: Sky advantage in the paint.
• 13-3: Las Vegas in fast-break points, with 18 points off Chicago's 11 turnovers.
• 99: Wilson's career games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Off to Brooklyn

Las Vegas moves to 14-5 and 9-2 on the road. That's two straight wins and four in the last five, and the Aces don't get to sit with it long: Tuesday brings the Commissioner's Cup Championship against New York at Barclays Center. On Friday, in a quick rematch of this first meeting of the season, they host the Sky.

Chicago falls to 6-13 and 3-7 at home. The loss ends a two-game win streak built on back-to-back beatdowns of Portland, the first time the Sky had strung wins together since May.

Sliders All the Way Up

There's a reason the line feels fake. It looks like what happens when your little cousin grabs the controller in NBA 2K and drags every slider all the way to the right. The Sky played a decent offensive game on Sunday. They just happened to be standing there when the record book needed a new page.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Context as reported by the Associated Press.