Aces vs. Valkyries: A'ja Wilson Drops 28 and 15 as Becky Hammon Becomes Second-Fastest WNBA Coach to 150 Wins

For a half, the Golden State Valkyries did what they do at Chase Center: let threes fly and dare somebody to keep up. Then A'ja Wilson and Jackie Young turned the third quarter into a private scoring contest, and the stingiest scoring defense in the WNBA spent the rest of Sunday afternoon looking like it had wandered into the wrong movie.

The Las Vegas Aces won 91-81, snapping a two-game skid and giving Becky Hammon the 150th win of her coaching career. Wilson finished with 28 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks. Young added 23 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Golden State came in allowing a league-low 78 points a game and had not given up more than 90 all season.

Twelve Lead Changes, Then a Door Slam

The first half was a proper heavyweight exchange. Las Vegas jumped to a 15-10 lead, Kayla Thornton answered with back-to-back threes to put the Valkyries ahead 16-15, and Golden State carried a 23-21 edge out of the first quarter. The lead changed hands nine times in the second alone before the Aces went in front for good at 42-41 with 76 seconds left. It was 43-41 at the half, with Wilson's nine second-quarter points doing most of the damage.

Then the door slammed. A 10-0 Aces run that began before the break kept rolling to 50-41 with 7:18 left in the third. Golden State went more than four minutes without a field goal, and when Thornton finally ended that drought from deep, Young responded with a three-point barrage of her own during another 10-0 spurt that made it 64-47. Las Vegas won the quarter 29-13 and took a 72-54 lead into the fourth.

The margin hit 24 at 82-58 with 7:15 to play, and then the building got loud again. Gabby Williams hit a 28-footer, Juste Jocyte splashed one from 24 and Williams' 23-foot three finished an 11-0 run that cut it to 85-74 with 1:52 left. Janelle Salaun added two free throws and a 26-foot running three to make it 87-79. Chelsea Gray, 1-of-7 on the day, picked that exact moment for her only field goal, a 16-foot pullup with 47.5 seconds left, and that was the ballgame.

The final minutes also brought a scare for the home team. Veronica Burton, Golden State's leading scorer at 15.9 a game, headed to the bench with about three and a half minutes to go, clutching at her left thigh, and there was no immediate word on how serious it was. Las Vegas had its own concern in Chennedy Carter, who took a couple of hard falls before halftime and logged just one minute after it.

Wilson and Young, Doing Wilson and Young Things

Wilson needed 22 shots to get her 28, but the rest of her line is what bends a game: five offensive rebounds, four assists, four blocks and 6-of-7 at the line in 36 minutes. Thirteen of her points came in the third, matching her entire first-half total in half the time. It was her sixth straight 20-point game. The Aces add that only four other players in WNBA history have reached 5,500 points, 2,500 rebounds and 550 blocks: Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker.

Young was the perfect complement, going 9-of-17 overall and 5-of-9 from deep while finishing one assist shy of double figures. She also crossed 3,500 career points. With at least 1,000 boards and 1,000 assists already on her resume, that makes her the 24th player in league history in that club and, at 28 years and 257 days, the youngest. Add NaLyssa Smith's 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and season highs in points, rebounds and assists from Stephanie Talbot, and Las Vegas had answers everywhere.

Williams led Golden State with a season-high 20 and shot 4-of-6 from three. Salaun scored 16 off the bench and reached 500 career points on her first basket. Thornton's 12 came entirely on four threes.

The Turning Point: A Quarter With Three Buckets

The third quarter decided this, and the numbers are brutal. Golden State made three field goals and turned it over five times. Wilson and Young each made more shots than the entire Valkyries roster, and together they scored 24 of the Aces' 29 points. Las Vegas assisted on 10 of its 11 baskets in the period, per the team, while the home side could not find a clean look anywhere. A two-point game became an 18-point game, and the crowd of 18,064 spent the rest of the day waiting for a comeback that showed up about five minutes late.

Stats That Matter

• 16-of-35: Golden State from three, a season high in makes. The Valkyries still lost by 10.
• 9-of-39: Their shooting inside the arc. That is the whole story in one line.
• 38-16: Las Vegas' edge in points in the paint.
• 8-0: Blocks. The Valkyries swatted 11 shots against Indiana in their previous game and none on Sunday.
• 26: Aces assists on 33 made field goals.

What It Means

Both teams sit at 5-3, but they took different roads there. All five Las Vegas wins have come away from home, where the Aces are 5-1, and they are still looking for their first home win at 0-2. The defending champions pulled this off without Dana Evans and Jewell Loyd, both out with leg injuries. They visit the Sparks on Tuesday.

Hammon's milestone carries real weight. Her 150 wins, counting regular season and playoffs, took 205 games, making her the second-fastest coach in WNBA history to get there. Only Van Chancellor, who did it in 198 with the Houston Comets, was quicker. Michael Cooper and Cheryl Reeve are next at 212.

Golden State's two-game winning streak is over, and the Valkyries fall to 3-2 at home. They host Portland on Tuesday and will be watching that thigh closely.

She Did Miss, Technically

Before tipoff, Kiah Stokes, a former Las Vegas teammate who drew the Wilson assignment, offered her scouting report: "going against a player that great, you can only hope she misses." Good news for Stokes: Wilson did miss. Eleven times, in fact. She also walked out of Chase Center with 28 points, 15 rebounds and a coach in the record books, which is the kind of hope that does not really scale.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press, the Las Vegas Aces and the Golden State Valkyries. Kiah Stokes' pregame quote via the Valkyries.