Fueled by Their Stars, Aces Win First-Ever WNBA Championship

With an All-Star core and the 2022 Coach of the Year, Las Vegas fulfilled the high expectations it had been giving this season.

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Aces guard Chelsea Gray had one last sprint in her. As the final seconds the 2022 WNBA Finals ticked off the clock and the ball was securely in the arms of her star teammate A’ja Wilson, Gray put her hands atop her head and dashed across the court toward her team’s bench. Awaiting her were All-Star guard Kelsey Plum, the league’s Coach of the Year Becky Hammon, and the rest of the fun-loving Las Vegas team that has now been crowned champions.

For four games, the Sun were unable to stop Gray. It was fitting, then, that when the buzzer sounded in Mohegan Sun Arena, she, herself, wouldn’t stop moving. On Sunday, the Aces defeated the Sun, 78–71, to win their franchise’s first-ever title and Gray led Las Vegas with a team-high 20 points and six assists. For her efforts, she was named the Finals MVP.

“I worked so hard for this,” she said in an on-court television interview after Game 4. “I was just pushing it in, and hopefully it goes through the basket.” Time and time again, it certainly did.

After not being named an All-Star this season, Gray “went to another level mentally” and was crucial to her team winning this year’s title.  :: Jessica Hill/Associated Press

First-quarter performances shaped Las Vegas’s series with Connecticut. In each of the first three games, the team leading after 10 minutes of play went on to win that night’s affair. The Aces were up 16–12 after the first on Sunday, and while there were multiple instances in the fourth quarter in which the game’s score would level, a fast start on the road made clear that Las Vegas wouldn’t roll over after being blown out by 29 three nights earlier.

The Aces stretched their lead to as much as 10 in the first half, but nine turnovers over the initial 20 minutes helped Connecticut move within two at halftime. As Hammon and Sun coach/general manager Curt Miller passed each other en route to their respective locker room, the long-time friends exchanged a high-five and a smile, well-aware of the theatrics that would ensure when action resumed.

“I know we had a lot of fun competing against each other in these Finals,” Miller said after the loss.

In early July, four members of the Aces (Wilson, Plum, guard Jackie Young and forward Dearica Hamby) were named to the All-Star team. The lone member of the core who didn’t get the accolade was Gray, though she had received the honor four times previously and had also been the starting point guard for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics.

The 29-year-old said she “got hungrier and got in even better shape” following the All-Star break. “[I] just went to another level mentally and I let my work ethic bring it along,” she said after Game 2. And she turned in one of the most prolific playoff runs in league history, repeatedly making contested shots, while also setting up her teammates.

Entering Sunday, Gray was second in scoring this postseason, averaging 21.9 points per game, and second in assists, with 7.1, all while being first in field goal percentage (of anyone who took more than 30 shots) at 60.3%. “It is not just about the playmaking,” Wilson said of Gray. “It is about how she dissects the game for us so that it can be easy for us and the calmness she has in the locker room is huge.”

Much like they had done all series, coming out of the locker room, the Sun continued to scrap for every stop, and for every basket Sunday. Jonquel Jones, the 2021 league MVP, scored five of her 13 points in the third quarter, and added two blocks against Wilson, each sending the crowd into a euphoric state. Jones, though, picked up her fourth foul with 3:14 to play in the period, and retreated to the bench.

When she returned just over a minute into the fourth with the Sun trailing by four, Miller pulled out one more trick to try and extend the series. Throughout the first half of the regular season, Miller played Jones, alongside All-Star forward Alyssa Thomas and All-Star center Brionna Jones 20 times. Throughout the remainder of the regular season, however, he deployed the group just thrice, and he used the trio sparingly in seven appearances throughout the playoffs.

But trailing by two possessions, Miller elected to play his three best bigs. With 6:25 to play, Brionna Jones slashed the lead to one by nailing a short-jumper for two of her 11 points off the bench. Then with 3:35 to play in regulation, after a slight Las Vegas push, Jonquel Jones hit a 10-footer to again draw Connecticut within one (Jones’s jumper came at the end of a five-point possession, which started with guard DeWanna Bonner nailing three free throws after benefitting from a flagrant foul by Plum).

Just over 90 seconds later, Brionna Jones went to the free throw line and hit two free throws—the final points Connecticut would score—to give the Sun a one-point lead, all while Thomas notched her second consecutive, and second-ever, triple-double in WNBA Finals history. She finished with 11 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds.

While Miller elected to play a big lineup during the game’s waning moments, Hammon went small, employing reserve guard Riquna Williams in place of starting center Kiah Stokes. With 2:01 remaining, the decision paid dividends. Williams knocked down her second straight three-pointer, this one giving Las Vegas a two-point cushion. After making her first, she had shushed the home crowd as she sprinted back, and after nailing her second she extended her arms wide as if she was soaring back toward the defensive end.

One offensive possession later, after Brionna Jones, Jonquel Jones and Thomas had all missed shots, Williams nailed a 20-foot stepback jumper to put the Aces up four with only 67 seconds to play, a margin that eventually finished at seven.

“You don't get the name ‘Bae Buckets’ for nothing,” Hammon said. “I know she got a lot in the tank and I've got the utmost confidence in her. She knows she's got the ultimate green light.”

“Be everywhere at all times,” Wilson said of her approach this postseason.  :: Jessica Hill/Associated Press

With her first championship, Wilson, who finished Game 4 with 11 points and 14 rebounds in a 40-minute outing, capped off one of the best individual seasons in league history. She averaged 19.5 points and 9.4 rebounds per game in the regular season, and took home her second MVP award as Las Vegas claimed the league’s No. 1 seed in the process. She also added Defensive Player of the Year honors to her resume, doing so, she said, while trying to be like a character in The Matrix. “Be everywhere at all times,” Wilson said earlier in the series.

Hammon was hired on the last day of 2021, poached away from the Spurs after eight seasons as an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich. When owner Mark Davis brought her, she became the league’s highest-paid coach, and immediately inherited a team both stocked with talent, and equipped with high expectations. “She's been believing in us from the beginning to play our style on both ends of the floor,” Gray said after Game 4. “We were scrappers and that's what she instilled in us from the beginning.”

While the Aces made it to the semifinals in its three previous postseasons under former coach Bill Laimbeer, the franchise had no titles to show for it. “We’re completely different now, a completely different team,” Young said.

Laimbeer watched from a courtside seat as the final seconds ticked off the clock, and his hands, much like countless members of this year’s iteration, shot to the sky as the championship was sealed.

Las Vegas’s All-Star core is expected to return next season. But as Wilson and Gray started to let the magnitude of this year’s title sink in, they didn’t want to think much about the future. Addressing reporters with bottles of champagne in front of them, Gray stayed focused on the present.

“The future is us taking some photos right now,” she said with a chuckle.

Minutes later, both posed with the trophy, basking in the ecstasy of taking home a title.

“Winning a championship is something that no one can ever take from you,” Wilson said. “And once you got that down, you are in the books forever.”