{"id":201008,"date":"2025-10-09T20:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T20:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201008\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T20:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T20:45:08","slug":"live-from-the-wnba-finals-aja-wilson-gives-the-aces-a-3-0-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201008\/","title":{"rendered":"Live from the WNBA Finals: A’ja Wilson gives the Aces a 3-0 lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercury<\/a> beat reporter Dylan Kane joined Powell for the podcast, reacting to Game 3 and discussing their chances to force Game 5 and beyond. The first issue Kane pointed to was the Aces\u2019 success on the perimeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the volume of the three pointers; it was how they were getting them,\u201d Kane said. \u201cI think Phoenix overhelped early on in the first half, especially Jewell. Jewell Loyd<\/a> had four three-pointers in a row, absolutely catching fire. And every single time the ball touched the paint, every single time someone drove, the entire Mercury defense would just collapse on them and it led to wide open opportunities for the Aces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBecoming Caitlin Clark\u201d is out now!<\/p>\n

Howard Megdal\u2019s newest book is here! \u201cBecoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar\u201d captures both the historic nature of Clark\u2019s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.<\/p>\n

Powell took a more holistic view, saying that the Aces are better prepared to match up across the floor. And, obviously, having the four-time MVP leading the charge doesn\u2019t hurt either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aces have done an excellent job of exploiting the mismatches, but I find that the Mercury are still struggling to do so,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI mean, an observation I had was you had Jewell guarding Satou [Sabally] and, you know, trying to front her, trying to, and clearly, Jewell Loyd was working as hard as she could. The Mercury waited so long to get Satou the ball. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was, I think, one play where you had Kierstan Bell<\/a> on the help pretty quickly, which was impressive, but Kierstan Bell didn\u2019t get there every time. I just felt like, still, the Mercury are really struggling to really use their size to their advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IX Basketball, a 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball newsroom powered by The Next
The IX Basketball<\/a>: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports<\/a>. 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The series will stay in Phoenix for Game 4 at 8 p.m. ET on Friday at the newly-named Mortgage Matchup Center, previously PHX Arena. Make sure to\u00a0subscribe to The IX Sports on YouTube<\/a>\u00a0to get all of Powell\u2019s videos throughout the WNBA Finals!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercury beat reporter Dylan Kane joined Powell for the podcast, reacting to Game 3 and discussing their chances…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[92879,68676,4662,49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-201008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-2025-wnba-finals","9":"tag-2025-wnba-playoffs","10":"tag-aja-wilson","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201008","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=201008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}