Will The Las Vegas Aces Repeat As WNBA Champions?
Will the Las Vegas Aces repeat as WNBA champions? They just got one step closer to accomplishing their goal of back-to-back-to-back championships!
Yesterday, the Aces beat the Seattle Storm 83-76, eliminating the Storm from the playoffs and moving onto the semi-finals. Now, they have a tough matchup ahead of them with the New York Liberty, who are the betting favorites to win it all. Do the Aces have what it takes to come out on top?
Will The Las Vegas Aces Go Back-To-Back-To-Back?
According to Covers.com, the New York Liberty currently has the best betting odds to win it all at +140 (on FanDuel) while the Aces have the 2nd best odds at +240. However, only one can advance to the finals. The Liberty finished the regular season with the best record in the WNBA at 32-8. Yeah, they only lost eight games all season! That’s pretty impressive. However, the Aces had a good season of their own, going 27-13.
That’s not to say that the Las Vegas Aces didn’t have a significant noteworthy season. Star A’ja Wilson was recently named the unanimous MVP of the WNBA. According to AP News, Wilson averaged 26.9 points and 11.8 rebounds this season. It was impressive to average a double-double in today’s game. She’s only the 2nd player ever to win MVP unanimously. She now joins Cynthia Cooper, who did it for the Houston Comets back in the league’s inaugural season in 1997. Today, the Houston Comets aren’t even a team! The team folded in 2008.
These 2 are familiar foes. The Aces bested the Liberty last season to win the WNBA Championship. Now, they’re all that stand in the way to get back to the Finals. The Aces have some serious star power leading the way with Wilson and fellow Olympian Kelsey Plum who’s a sharp shooter herself. The problem? The Liberty have gotten the best of the Aces so far this season, beating them three times. Once in June, once in August, and most recently on September 8th.
Plum tells ESPN, “New York is a lot better team than they were last year. They’re bigger; they shoot the ball at a better clip. So credit to them. We have to focus on what we can do. Sometimes, we can be our own worst enemy. But they kicked our butt all three times [this year]. This is a fresh start. But there’s no secret they’ve taken care of business and they’ve done what they needed to do, and that’s why they have the 1 seed. So it’s an uphill battle.”
The series will start in Brooklyn on Sunday, September 29th.