HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) \u2014 The Aces are preparing for a championship parade Friday that few outside the organization saw coming just a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n
At the forefront will be the coach who made it happen \u2014 again.<\/p>\n
In leading Las Vegas to its third championship in four years, Becky Hammon put herself on the select list of all-time WNBA coaching greats.<\/p>\n
Her three titles are just behind record holders Van Chancellor and Cheryl Reeve. Chancellor coached the Houston Comets to the league\u2019s first four championships, and Reeve led the Minnesota Lynx to four titles over seven seasons. Hammon is tied with former Aces coach Bill Laimbeer, who captured his championships with the Detroit Shock.<\/p>\n
Give Hammon a shot at a title and she is nearly unbeatable.<\/p>\n
She owns the best record in WNBA Finals (10-2), and her 9-1 record in playoff series tops even Phil Jackson\u2019s NBA mark of 86.2%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I always trust, we\u2019re not going to get outcoached,\u201d guard Jewell Loyd said.<\/p>\n
That was proven in the finals.<\/p>\n
Hammon threw a zone defense at Phoenix in the second half of Game 1 even though her team hadn\u2019t worked on it. The surprise switch confused the Mercury, and the Aces rallied for the victory. A win secured when Kiah Stokes was put in for the final 14 seconds \u2014 her only 14 seconds that game \u2014 for defensive purposes to deny the Mercury a quality final shot.<\/p>\n
In Game 3 in Phoenix, the Aces had the ball with the game tied in the final seconds. With the clock winding down, the Aces\u2019 offense appeared confused and Hammon called timeout rather than let the final five seconds play out. She put the ball in the hands of four-time MVP A\u2019ja Wilson, who delivered the series\u2019 defining moment with the winning shot with 0.3 seconds left.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s like the queen of adjustments,\u201d point guard Chelsea Gray said. \u201cShe\u2019s got so many tricks and philosophies and different things that she can do in the playoffs and in a series. I\u2019ll take us in a series any day.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just strategy, which Hammon said is a small percentage of coaching. Hammon said she has a combination of stubbornness and ability to be highly flexible that she found a way to marry.<\/p>\n
Her ability to lead was tested this season like no other in her four seasons in Las Vegas. The Aces were 14-14 and coming off a 53-point loss to Minnesota \u2014 the worst defeat for a home team in league history. Forget holding the championship trophy in October, the Aces looked like they might be headed toward a rebuild.<\/p>\n
Players such as Wilson stepped up to keep the team intact, but Hammon did her part, too, in not only saving the season, but leading the Aces to a 16-game winning streak to end the regular season.<\/p>\n
It was probably her best coaching job.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes in so far as this season had less to do with \u2018Xs\u2019 and \u2018Os\u2019 and more to do with what 90% of coaching is, which is managing people, trying to articulate, trying to get the group to be cohesive, to be a group,\u201d Hammon said. \u201cIt was a lot more mental, emotional, read the room in what does my team need from me? Does my team need me to be strong? Do they need my fire right now? Do they need my confidence right now? Do they need my discipline right now? Do they need hugs right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammon knew she had trust built up with core players Wilson, Gray and Jackie Young, that she could coach them hard because they knew her motivation was coming from a good place. Establishing that trust with newcomers took more time.<\/p>\n
But it happened. The players followed the lead of their coach whose jersey hangs in the Michelob Ultra Arena rafters from her Hall of Fame playing days when the organization was based in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Hammon took her bond with the players to another level when she included them in game planning, with Wilson taking a particularly notable role.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecky\u2019s heart and her mind about the game, it\u2019s always about the next person,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cOur motto this year was \u2018others.\u2019 We always wanted to focus on other people because it\u2019s not going to be just you that wins a championship. It\u2019s not going to be just you that wins a game. It\u2019s going to take everybody, and so for Becky to instill that trust in us, it didn\u2019t come by any surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s parade shows that approach works.<\/p>\n
Very little hasn\u2019t worked since Aces owner Mark Davis made Hammon the league\u2019s first $1 million-a-year coach in 2022.<\/p>\n
Talk about worth the money.<\/p>\n
But Hammon doesn\u2019t like to discuss where she might rank in WNBA coaching history, saying there is plenty of work left to be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never want to get stagnant and not have growth, so typically I try to stay far away from comparisons in general,\u201d Hammon said. \u201cI just try to be myself and try to be my best version of myself, and try to be the best coach I can be for the players that I\u2019m leading. But, no, it\u2019s not something I think about. Most of the time when somebody tells me something, it\u2019s new to me. I\u2019m not looking up those stats or numbers or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n
Mark Anderson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) \u2014 The Aces are preparing for a championship parade Friday that few outside the organization…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-213719","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\/213719","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=213719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}