WNBA: Aces headed home after losing two in New York

Las Vegas Aces’ Alysha Clark (7) looks to pass during the second half of a WNBA basketball semifinal game against the New York Liberty, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in New York. The Liberty won 88-84. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK — The Las Vegas Aces and Connecticut Sun head home with two very different feelings after the opening two games of their WNBA playoff semifinals series.

The Aces are trying to save their season against New York while the Sun hope to close out the Minnesota Lynx.

Two-time defending champion Las Vegas trails New York 2-0 in the best-of-5 series. The Sun split the first two games in Minnesota.

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The Aces aren’t panicking, despite needing to pull off a historic comeback to advance to the Finals for the third straight year.

“At the end of the day, we have neither lost nor won a championship. Nothing has been won tonight,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. “Do we have an uphill battle? Absolutely we do. All New York did was do what New York should do — defend their home court. It’s a series, we intend on pushing it five games. We got to take it quarter by quarter. Be solid on the defensive end.”

No team has ever come back from an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-5 WNBA playoff series.

“I love being in the history books, might as well try and start there,” said Aces guard Chelsea Gray. “That’s going to be our mentality. We must win for our series to continue.”

New York for its part, insists it hasn’t accomplished anything yet. The Liberty just defended their home court. It will take one more win in the next three games to knock out the Aces. The series shifts to Las Vegas for Game 3 on Friday. If the Aces do win the next game, Game 4 will be on Sunday.

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“Being up 2-0 is great, but we haven’t won anything,” said Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 24 points in the 88-84 win. “Everyone knows that. Did what we were supposed to do, protect home court. Win two at home. We’re not patting ourselves on the back, talking how happy we are. We didn’t come to win two games at home and be satisfied, we’re a hungry group.”

The Sun took Game 1 from the Lynx in Minnesota and lost 77-70 in Game 2 on Tuesday night.

“This is the way a series is, right? Obviously our goal is to win every game, but when you can steal one on the opponent’s home court that’s important,” Connecticut coach Stephanie White said. “I do think that we’re two veteran teams, we’re two very similar teams, and your defense always travels. So whether you’re home or whether you’re on the road, I’m not really sure that it matters.”

Both Minnesota and Connecticut are good defensive teams and White knows that the winner of the series will probably be the team that has a better shooting percentage.

“We’re going to be fine. We’re going to be ready to go. We’re going to make our adjustments and look forward to Friday,” she said.

Cheryl Reeve, who won the league’s Coach of the Year for Minnesota, has been in this position before. She has faith in her team.

“I believe to be successful you do have to experience adversity. You have to get through the adversity, go through it, go through the lumps, bumps, all of that to get through the promised land,” said Reeve, who has won four WNBA titles with the Lynx. “That’s the only way. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.”