Aces vs. Wings: A'ja Wilson Scores 32, Chelsea Gray Hits 2,000 Career Assists as Las Vegas Avoids a Sweep

Ten minutes into Thursday night's game, Cheyenne Parker-Tyus stood in front of an NBA TV camera and skipped the usual coach-speak. "We came in with the focus to kick their butts," she said, and it's hard to argue with somebody whose team is already up 28-17.

A'ja Wilson scored 32, Chelsea Gray joined a very short list, and the Las Vegas Aces beat the Dallas Wings 99-84 at Michelob ULTRA Arena. Dallas had won the first two meetings this season, including a 96-66 beating 10 days earlier, and came to town hunting its first sweep of the Aces since 2018. It leaves with the season series and a very sore 3-point percentage.

Dallas Keeps Knocking, Vegas Keeps Answering

The Wings held the lead for all of 48 seconds, according to the Aces' game notes. Wilson's jumpers plus 3s from Gray, Jewell Loyd and Kierstan Bell made it 15-4 with 3:34 left in the first, and Gray's second 3 of the quarter pushed it to 28-15 before Paige Bueckers' jumper in the final seconds trimmed it to 11.

Loyd's 3 made it 35-20 early in the second, and a Wilson layup at the 3:42 mark made it 45-28, the biggest Vegas lead of the half. Then the Aces went cold, missing their last four shots from the floor, while Jessica Shepard scored 11 in the quarter and Dallas chewed the margin down to 47-38. Two Wilson free throws sent it to the break at 49-39.

Dallas wasn't done pestering. Shepard and Awak Kuier scored inside, Aziaha James took over from there, and her running layup at 6:22 of the third made it 53-49. That was as close as the Wings would get. Wilson answered from the line, and Jackie Young's 25-footer turned into a four-point play at 1:33 to rebuild the lead to 69-59.

That free-throw line was a recurring problem for Dallas, which got whistled for 25 fouls. Wilson and Young alone went 18-of-21 from the stripe, and every time the Wings built a little momentum, a trip to the line stopped it cold. Las Vegas also scored 20 points off Dallas turnovers and won the fast-break column 16-8, so the Wings' best stretches kept getting interrupted by the transition game going the wrong direction.

The Stars Did Star Things

Wilson's 32 came on 12-of-21 shooting and 8-of-11 at the line, plus nine rebounds. She scored with a metronome's consistency (8, 8, 10 and 6 by quarter) and never let a Dallas push last long enough to get comfortable. Her plus-14 undersells it, because the Aces' whole offense flowed from the attention she commanded in the mid-range and at the rim.

Gray's night was the milestone. She finished with 12 points and nine assists, leaving her at 2,003 career assists. Pair that with her 4,500-plus points and, per the AP, only three other players in league history have reached both numbers.

Young was sneaky great, with 20 points on just six shots, 10-of-10 at the line, eight rebounds and six assists. Parker-Tyus backed up the trash talk with 13 in 17 minutes off the bench. Bell went 4-of-4 for a season-high 10, and NaLyssa Smith grabbed 11 rebounds on a night she scored just four.

Bueckers was terrific for Dallas, scoring 25 on 11-of-19 with six assists and three steals. Shepard had 22 points and 14 rebounds on 8-of-11. The rest of the perimeter had a rough one: Arike Ogunbowale went 1-of-10 for four points and Azzi Fudd scored seven on 3-of-9, though Awak Kuier did chip in eight on 4-of-7. Only two Wings made a 3 all night, Fudd and Sug Sutton, and both of those came before halftime.

Nine Straight and the Door Closes

After Young's four-point play, Dallas scored the next four to get back within six. Then came the sequence that decided things. With 24.5 seconds left in the third, Gray found Bell cutting inside for a layup, and that was assist No. 2,000. Gray opened the fourth with a 12-footer, set up a 24-foot Bell 3, then drove for a layup at 8:35.

That's nine straight points in under two minutes of clock, with Gray's fingerprints on all of them, and it turned 69-63 into 78-63. Dallas scored plenty the rest of the way, but it never got back within single digits.

The Numbers That Explain It

• The arc: Vegas went 8-of-18 from 3, Dallas 2-of-21. That's an 18-point gap, and the Aces' notes say the percentage and the makes were both Dallas season lows. The Wings were 0-for-12 after halftime.
• The line: The Aces made 27 of a season-high 33 free throws, while Dallas went 14-of-16.
• The glass: Vegas won 35-24, and the team says that was the fewest rebounds of the season for Dallas.
• The paint: Dallas won it 52-40 and made more field goals, 34 to 32, which shows how much damage the arc and the stripe can do.
• The bench: Las Vegas reserves outscored Dallas' 31-18.

Bounce-Back Logged

The Aces are 13-5 and 5-3 at home, and they've won nine of their past 11. New York had beaten them 87-76 on Tuesday, so this qualified as a response in front of 10,295, the team's 56th consecutive sellout. They head to Chicago on Sunday.

The Wings fall to 11-7 and 5-5 on the road, with a two-game winning streak gone. They still take the season series 2-1. Minnesota visits Dallas on Sunday.

Spoiler Alert

Parker-Tyus gave away the whole plot 10 minutes in, on national television. Dallas heard it, chipped within four and still couldn't change the ending. Think of it as a rewatch of Ocean's Eleven: you already know the crew walks out with the money, and the fun is in watching how they pull it off. On this night in Vegas, the how involved 32 from Wilson and one very patient veteran reaching a pair of numbers that only three other people have.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Additional details from the Associated Press and the Las Vegas Aces.