UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) \u2014 A’ja Wilson had a historic night, putting on an offensive display while scoring from nearly everywhere on the court.<\/p>\n
The four-time WNBA MVP scored 45 points to help the Las Vegas Aces beat the Connecticut Sun 101-94 on Friday night. Wilson was an incredibly efficient 15 for 18 from the field, hitting both of her 3-point attempts. She also made all 13 of her free throws.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinding shots in our system and letting the flow of the game take over,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThat’s big to me. I want to be efficient. It’s beautiful to rack up all these points, but to be efficient, that’s what is key.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the fifth time she has scored over 40 points \u2014 a WNBA record, breaking a tie with Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi. Her career high is 53 on Aug. 22, 2023 against Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Wilson’s boyfriend, Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat, was at the game on Friday, just as she attended his 83-point effort in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was unbelievable,\u201d Aces coach Becky Hammon said. \u201cReally happy with the free throws. The 3s, she just continued to sprinkle those in. She got a lot of early touches.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Connecticut cut a 13-point deficit to 72-70 late in the third quarter, Wilson hit a 3-pointer out of a timeout and then followed it up with a three-point play, igniting a 16-4 run that put the game away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t really designed to be like that,\u201d Wilson said of her 3. \u201cI was trying to take what the defense was giving me. (Raegan) Beers was playing a little bit off, so why not?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson has had a lot of big moments at Mohegan Sun Arena. This was potentially her last game there, with the Sun set to move to Houston next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis building has been special to me for a while,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cGot my first WNBA point in this building and championship in this building. It’s fun coming here. … Going to miss this place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chelsea Gray has had a front-row seat to Wilson’s amazing play over the last five seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can’t get bored with watching greatness,\u201d the Aces’ star point guard said. \u201cI’m around it all the time, but I’m surprised every day. I never want to get to the spot where I’m comfortable, like, yeah, that’s unheard of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) \u2014 A’ja Wilson had a historic night, putting on an offensive display while scoring from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4662,247565,505,14736,8133,4657,49,48,12199,35220,200422,200416,226689,247566,82,630],"class_list":["post-672699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-aces-aja-wilson-45-points","tag-atlanta","tag-bam-adebayo","tag-becky-hammon","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chelsea-gray","tag-diana-taurasi","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40778-ap-connecticut-sports-only","tag-product-40798-ap-nevada-sports-only","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672699","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=672699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}