A’ja Wilson and the red-hot Las Vegas Aces closed out the regular season with their 16th straight win, defeating Cameron Brink and the Los Angeles Sparks 103-75 on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Aces were led by A’ja Wilson’s 23 points and 19 rebounds, while Chelsea Gray recorded a double-double with 15 points and 10 assists. With the win, Las Vegas improved to 30-14 and secured second place in the standings, edging out the Atlanta Dream via tiebreaker heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
After the Sparks postseason hopes were dashed Tuesday\u2014despite a win of their own over the Phoenix Mercury\u2014when the Seattle Storm clinched the final playoff spot, Los Angeles wrapped up the season with a 21-23 record, finishing ninth in the WNBA.<\/p>\n
Brink finished with two points and two rebounds, while Kelsey Plum added 15 points and eight assists. Dearica Hamby contributed 15 points and six rebounds, Azur\u00e1 Stevens had five points and 12 rebounds, and Sarah Ashlee Barker chipped in 15 points off the bench.<\/p>\n
The Aces raced out to a 29\u201313 lead after the first quarter, fueled by 12 early points from Jackie Young. The Sparks responded in the second with a strong push, led by Stevens and Plum, but Las Vegas maintained control and took a commanding 53\u201334 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
After the break, both teams traded baskets in a tightly contested third quarter. Each side scored 24 points in the frame, with Ashlee Barker providing a spark off the bench for Los Angeles. Still, Wilson and the Aces remained in control, holding a 77\u201358 advantage heading into the final period.<\/p>\n
In the fourth, the Aces pulled away for good, clamping down defensively and emptying the bench as they closed out the regular season with their 16th straight win \u2014 a dominant finish heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The WNBA playoffs kickoff on Sunday. The Las Vegas Aces will face the Seattle Storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A’ja Wilson and the red-hot Las Vegas Aces closed out the regular season with their 16th straight win,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-137765","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\/137765","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=137765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}