Aces vs. Sun: Jackie Young Scores 24 in Three Quarters as Las Vegas Pulls Away for a 101-78 Win

Jackie Young clocked out early on Thursday night, and nobody in Las Vegas complained. By the time the fourth quarter started, she had 24 points and seven rebounds, the Aces had turned a coin-flip game into a laugher, and Young got to spend the final 10 minutes as the most comfortable spectator at Michelob ULTRA Arena.

Las Vegas beat the Connecticut Sun 101-78, with A'ja Wilson adding 20 points and Cheyenne Parker-Tyus bringing 18 points and nine rebounds off the bench. The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Aces (25-13) and completed a 3-0 sweep of the season series, and according to the AP it was their 11th straight win over Connecticut.

Twenty Minutes of Tug-of-War, Then a Landslide

The first half was a lot more interesting than the final score suggests. The Sun twice strung together 10 straight points. The first run turned a nine-point deficit into a 26-25 lead early in the second quarter, and the second, which straddled halftime, erased an eight-point Las Vegas cushion. The Aces carried just a 48-47 edge into the break, and Connecticut went in front 52-50 early in the third.

Then the lights went out on the Sun. Las Vegas scored 16 consecutive points in roughly three and a half minutes, turning that two-point deficit into a 66-52 lead, and the Aces won the third quarter 27-16 to lead 75-63 after three. Connecticut scored first in the fourth. Las Vegas answered with the next 12 points, and by the 7:24 mark the scoreboard read 87-65. The lead topped out at 24, and the last few minutes were mostly a showcase for the end of the Aces' bench. Parker-Tyus put the final points on the board with a 26-foot 3 with 14.9 seconds left, one of two late 3s set up by Mai Yamamoto.

Young's Short Shift, Wilson's Steady Hand

Young's line is a reminder of how good she is when she gets going downhill and from deep at the same time. She made 10 of 21 shots, 4 of 9 from 3-point range, and added seven rebounds and five assists in 28 minutes. She didn't attempt a single free throw. She just kept making shots.

Wilson did her damage in 27 minutes, scoring 20 on 9-of-19 shooting with four assists. Her plus-22 was right there with the best marks in the building.

The real surprise was Parker-Tyus, who might have had the most efficient night of anyone on the floor. She made 4 of 5 shots, both of her 3-point attempts and 8 of 9 free throws, and six of her nine rebounds came on the offensive glass. That is a bench player turning a rotation shift into a takeover.

Stephanie Talbot finished with only five points, but her fingerprints were everywhere: six rebounds, four assists, three steals and a plus-24, the best mark of the night. Yamamoto added nine points. Jewell Loyd scored seven, and the AP noted she moved into eighth place on the WNBA's made 3-pointers list with 728.

Las Vegas also won the bench battle 39-30, with Parker-Tyus doing most of the heavy lifting and Kierstan Bell dropping a late 3 in her four minutes. Chelsea Gray scored just six, but she had four assists and a plus-20 without committing the kind of mistakes that kept hurting the other side.

For Connecticut, Olivia Nelson-Ododa scored 14 points, 12 of them in the first half. Kennedy Burke and Leila Lacan each had 11, Charlisse Leger-Walker added 10 on 4-of-7 shooting, and Saniya Rivers chipped in eight points, seven rebounds and five assists off the bench. Raegan Beers made both of her shots for six points in a short stint, and Rayah Marshall posted a plus-7 in seven minutes, one of only two Sun players on the positive side of the ledger. The rest of the rotation paid for the turnovers. Diamond Miller went 1 of 6 in 11 minutes, and Leger-Walker, despite her solid shooting, finished with the game's worst plus-minus at minus-26.

The Turning Point

The 16-0 run in the third quarter. Connecticut had done everything it needed to do to steal a road win: it had survived Las Vegas' early push, it had answered with two double-digit runs and it had the lead. Then the Sun's offense stalled, and the Aces poured it on. In about three and a half minutes, a two-point deficit became a 14-point hole, and the rest of the night was a formality.

Stats That Matter

• 28: Points Las Vegas scored off Connecticut's 19 turnovers.
• 40-23: The Aces' rebounding margin, including a 12-5 edge on the offensive glass.
• 50-40: Las Vegas' advantage in paint points.
• 16-0: The third-quarter run that broke the game open.
• 16-6: Connecticut's edge in fast-break points, one of the few categories the Sun won.

What It Means

The Aces improve to 25-13 and 12-7 at home after losing their previous two games to Minnesota and Atlanta. They wrapped up the season series against Connecticut with a third win in three tries, and they head out on the road next with a trip to Toronto on Sunday.

Connecticut drops to 9-26 and 3-14 on the road. Two nights after a home win over the Sparks, the Sun handed the ball away 19 times in the desert, and their road trip continues Saturday in Los Angeles.

Closing Take

For 20 minutes, the Sun played like a team that had read the scouting report and believed it. For the next 20, they played like a team that had just remembered who was on the other side. Las Vegas doesn't need perfection to win games like this. It needs one stretch of defense that turns into layups and 3s, and on Thursday that stretch lasted about three and a half minutes. Young's night was like a great TV episode that ends before the last commercial break. Nobody asked for an extended cut, because the story had already been told.

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