Becky Hammon: ‘I thought it was really poor’

The Las Vegas Aces (0-1) met the Indiana Fever (1-0) for game 1 of the in the WNBA Semifinals on Sunday afternoon.

4x MVP A’ja Wilson was honored with her MVP trophy by the home crowd before the game.

Las Vegas started the first quarter a little slow against the Fever, but Jackie Young added her spark with an early three-pointer to pull the Aces to within three of the Fever.

At the conclusion of the thirst quarter the Aces were down 19-18.  In the second quarter the Aces needed to take some momentum to get ahead of Indiana. The Aces willed their way to tie with the Fever 27-27 with under 5:00 minutes remaining in the second quarter.

For the remainder of the first half, to two teams traded scores. To close out the first half, the Aces were down 41-36 to the No. 6 seed Indiana Fever.

Kelsey Mitchell closed out the first half for Indiana with 17 points.

Before the start of the second half, Aces coach Becky Hammon said, “I don’t like our ball movement right now. We gotta get the ball poppin’ and we’re kinda being stagnant about it.”

The Aces then went on a 10-0 run with Dana Evans completing the three-point play. Indiana closed out the third quarter with a 14-point lead over the Aces.

During the second half, A’ja Wilson added another accolade to her long resume. She earned the 4^th most double-doubles in WNBA playoff history.

Wilson ended up foul trouble at the close of the third quarter. Dana Evans went on her own personal run to keep the Aces in the game as the clock ticked down, but Indiana was hungry to prove everyone wrong.

Kelsey Mitchell came up big for the Fever racking up 34 points in the 89-73 win over Las Vegas.

“We had 12 assists tonight in 40 minutes. 12 and 12 turnovers. But you can start on the defensive end. I mean clearly, we had no answer for Mitchell. I thought it was really poor.”

The Aces will go back to drawing board in the meantime before meeting the Indiana Fever on Tuesday, September 23 at 6:30pm PT on ESPN.