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Michael VoepelSep 5, 2025, 01:47 AM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.<\/p>\n The Las Vegas Aces<\/a> extended their winning streak to a franchise-record 13 games Thursday night as they defeated the Minnesota Lynx<\/a> 97-87<\/a> at T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n At 27-14, the Aces are in a three-way tie for second place with the Atlanta Dream<\/a> and Phoenix Mercury<\/a>. But based on their regular-season results, the Aces hold the tiebreaker against both teams.<\/p>\n Minnesota (32-9) already has the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.<\/p>\n But being the No. 2 seed, with the chance to avoid the Lynx until a potential WNBA Finals matchup, is a goal the Aces still can attain.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n The Aces had lost their previous three meetings against the Lynx, including a 111-58 blowout Aug. 2 that dropped them to 14-14. That game became the turning point in their season, and they haven’t lost since.<\/p>\n “We got embarrassed the last time we played them,” Aces guard Chelsea Gray<\/a> said of the Lynx. “It was pretty cut and dried.”<\/p>\n But even then, Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said she knew that if her team could put the pieces together, it could go on a run. Las Vegas has the longest winning streak in the WNBA since the Connecticut Sun<\/a> won 14 in a row in 2021.<\/p>\n “When you’re losing, you have to fight off human nature to question yourself,” Hammon said. “You have to stay really resolute in what you believe. There’s a certain way I believe this team has to play to win, and you really just have to stick to it.<\/p>\n “Even though we were losing games, I told them multiple times, ‘We’re so close to turning that corner. And once that corner is turned, it’s going to be scary.'”<\/p>\n The rest of the league likely is concerned with how well the two-time WNBA champions have played for the past month. A’ja Wilson<\/a>, who scored 31 points Thursday to tie a league record with her 12th game of 30 or more points in a season, has led the way. She was 12-of-15 from the field and added eight rebounds against the Lynx. Jackie Young<\/a> had 20 points for Las Vegas, while Gray had 13 points and 10 assists.<\/p>\n Wilson is making a strong case for her fourth MVP award. The other top contenders are Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier<\/a>, who had 12 points and six rebounds in the loss, and Phoenix’s Alyssa Thomas<\/a>, who had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists in the Mercury’s 75-69 victory at Washington on Thursday.<\/p>\n “We really had to learn how to believe in each other,” Wilson said of how the Aces have changed their trajectory since early August. “Even Becky … she was like, ‘You guys have to figure it out,’ because it is on us.”<\/p>\n Hammon said she has not been paying much attention to the streak but rather to continuing to move up the standings. The Aces have three regular-season games remaining: two at home against Chicago and then at Los Angeles.<\/p>\n “We’re just about the next game,” Hammon said. “We’ll let you guys keep track of [the winning streak].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael VoepelSep 5, 2025, 01:47 AM ET CloseMichael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-121196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}