\u00a0A’ja Wilson has scored 31 points and grabbed nine rebounds to help Las Vegas Aces beat Phoenix Mercury 97\u201386 in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals and win their third title in four seasons.<\/p>\n
Four-time league MVP Wilson made 17 of 19 free throws, as the Aces swept the Mercury in the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n
Wilson locked up her second Finals MVP honour. She won her first in 2023, the second of the Aces’s two straight titles.<\/p>\n
Only Houston Comets, who won the first four league titles (1997\u20132000), have had a better run than the Aces.<\/p>\n
“You have your Mount Rushmore, she’s [Wilson] alone on Everest,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said.<\/p>\n
“There’s no-one around.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A’ja Wilson was named Finals MVP for the second time in her career. (Getty Images: Christian Petersen)<\/p>\n
Jackie Young posted 18 points and eight assists for the Aces, while Chelsea Gray (18 points), Jewell Loyd (12) and Dana Evans (10) each chipped in with valuable contributions.<\/p>\n
The Aces finished with 25 wins in their final 28 games.<\/p>\n
Whether they can maintain their success may depend on the outcome of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
Most of the Aces, like a majority of players in the WNBA, are free agents. The team could look vastly different next season if players decide to go elsewhere.<\/p>\n
If Wilson, Young, Gray and Loyd choose to stay, the Aces could keep their run of titles going for a while.<\/p>\n
“Vegas is the standard. We’re here for a reason. Took a little bit to get here,” Young said.<\/p>\n
“Proud to put on an Aces uniform every night.”<\/p>\n
Reuters\/AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0A’ja Wilson has scored 31 points and grabbed nine rebounds to help Las Vegas Aces beat Phoenix Mercury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[65671,127428,64,63,726,127465,2623,55509,22952,29169,16309,85,97938],"class_list":["post-205287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aja-wilson","tag-aces","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-game-4","tag-las-vegas","tag-mercury","tag-mvp","tag-phoenix","tag-playoffs","tag-sports","tag-wnba-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}