The Las Vegas Aces are back in familiar territory, chasing another title in the WNBA Finals. It marks their third trip in four years and their fourth overall since 2019, Yahoo reports. But this journey looks nothing like the ones before, prompting a great interview from Becky Hammon.
On Tuesday night, Las Vegas punched its ticket to the Finals after a 107-98 overtime win over the Indiana Fever. The victory capped a remarkable turnaround for a team that sat below .500 as late as July 25. Under head coach Becky Hammon, the Aces weathered doubt, criticism, and what at times looked like a lost season, yet found themselves once again within striking distance of history.
“It’s not an, ‘Oh, we’re happy to be here,’ because we worked our butts off to get here,” league MVP A’ja Wilson said after the win. “But it does feel a lot different than the ones before only because we went through the mud for this. Like Coach always says, we weren’t necessarily buried, we were planted.”
Hammon, seated next to Wilson, smiled before dropping a line from Rascal Flatts’ “Bless the Broken Road.” “Our road has been broken,” she said. “It’s been a twisty, windy one but here we are.”
Adversity fuels belief
The Aces had to block out plenty of noise along the way. Wilson, despite dominating on both ends, wasn’t a lock in early MVP conversations. Critics questioned trading for NaLyssa Smith, a forward who struggled on a lottery-bound team. Pundits even suggested the franchise’s window had closed and that it was time to tear it all down.
Inside the locker room, though, Hammon had a different message. “We are so close to turning this corner,” she told her players. “When we turn it, we’re going to be scary.” She repeated it until the team started to believe it, and eventually, the play on the court reflected it.
Now, after navigating the storm, the Aces look like themselves again, hungry for a three-peat and eager to carve their names deeper into the league’s history. The road may have been broken, but as Hammon reminded everyone, sometimes the toughest paths lead to the grandest stage.
