The Las Vegas Aces may have been without perennial MVP A’ja Wilson, but the defending WNBA champions still survived at home despite a turbulent effort in a 98-90 overtime victory against the Chicago Sky on Friday.
Forward NaLyssa Smith picked up where her frontcourt partner Wilson was unable to, tallying a career-high 29 points for the Aces (15-5) on an efficient 11-of-14 shooting while also collecting eight rebounds. Jewell Loyd added 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting, while Chelsea Gray chipped in 18 points, six assists and four rebounds.
Skylar Diggins paced the Sky (6-14) with 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting, making two of her four attempts from 3-point range. Natasha Cloud was the driving force behind Chicago’s fourth-quarter rally, adding 15 points and five assists in the loss. Kamila Cardoso also delivered an encore to her 24-point game against the Aces on Sunday, chipping in 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists.
Trailing 86-84, Gray buried a mid-range pull-up jumper with 22.6 seconds remaining to knot the game at 86 and eventually send the game to overtime after an empty Sky possession ended regulation. Diggins gave the Sky an 88-86 lead to open the scoring in overtime, but the Aces answered with a 6-0 run to stretch their lead to 92-88 with 1:14 left in the extra period and didn’t look back.
After Gray put the Aces ahead by a game-high 14 points with 8:58 remaining in the third quarter, the Sky went on a 26-13 run to cut the lead down to 64-63 with 1:53 remaining in the frame. Loyd promptly answered with a rally of her own for Las Vegas, scoring seven of the Aces’ next nine points to push their lead back to 73-64 early in the fourth quarter.
Despite the fact that the Sky trailed by double digits in each of the first three quarters, they still managed to take their first lead of the game, 82-81, on a Cloud 3-pointer with 3:47 remaining and extended that lead to 84-81 on their next possession on a Diggins lay-in.
The Aces overcame a troublesome 4-of-22 clip from 3-point range (18.2%), while Chicago made 7 of 20 attempts from beyond the arc (35%). Despite that, Las Vegas still shot a superior 35-of-69 (50.7%) from the field overall, while Chicago made 28 of 65 field-goal attempts (43.1%).
–Field Level Media
