{"id":153477,"date":"2025-09-13T08:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/153477\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T08:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:30:11","slug":"why-the-las-vegas-aces-are-the-team-to-beat-in-the-wnba-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/153477\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Las Vegas Aces are the team to beat in the WNBA playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"ax\">A little over a month ago, the Las Vegas Aces were down in the <a href=\"https:\/\/fansided.com\/wnba\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WNBA<\/a> standings and sitting with a 14-14 record on the season. Fans were not sure if we&#8217;d even been seeing them in this year&#8217;s postseason after a brutal 111-58 loss against the Minnesota Lynx in early August. But that game became a turning point for their entire season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"b0\">After the loss, Vegas star A&#8217;ja Wilson made her feelings to her teammates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DM8JoQAMI3y\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">incredibly clear<\/a>. She stated, &#8220;If you weren&#8217;t embarrassed from yesterday, then don&#8217;t come into this gym. You&#8217;re not needed or wanted here.&#8221; And this motivation seemingly worked wonders, because here we are a month later &#8211; the Aces are on a <a href=\"https:\/\/fansided.com\/longest-win-streaks-wnba-history-aces-rank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">16-game winning streak<\/a> and clinched the No. 2 seed in the playoffs, making themselves a real threat.  <\/p>\n<p>Aces in the playoffs<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"b6\">This Las Vegas squad is truly looking unstoppable right now. They have four players averaging 10+ points per game, including A&#8217;ja Wilson, who leads the league with an average of 23.4 points per game. Wilson has had yet<a href=\"https:\/\/fansided.com\/making-wnba-mvp-case-napheesa-collier-aja-wilson-alyssa-thomas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> another MVP-like season<\/a>; she is a massive reason why Vegas is back in the championship conversation. Over their 16-game winning streak, Wilson has scored the team-high in 12 of them &#8211; including a three-game streak of putting up 30+ points. As if that&#8217;s not enough, they also have three dynamic guards in Jewel Loyd, Chelsea Gray, and Jackie Young, who can also shoot the ball from deep &#8211; the Aces are third with a 3-point percentage of 35.1. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"b9\">In the first round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/fansided.com\/wnba-playoff-bracket-2025-matchups-dates-tv-info\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WNBA Playoffs<\/a>, the Aces will be facing off against the Seattle Storm. They saw each other four times in the regular season, and the series went an even 2-2. In their last matchup, which took place over a month ago, things went right down to the wire. Wilson had 29 points, while the Storm&#8217;s bench showed out. Storm rookie Dominque Malonga put up 22 points, and vet Brittney Sykes had 14 of her own. But the bench performance wasn&#8217;t enough because the Aces were able to hold one of Seattle&#8217;s most dynamic players, Skylar Diggins, to 0 points in 20 minutes on the court. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"bc\">If Vegas can maintain that dominant offense mixed with their aggressive defense, Seattle will have a tough time upsetting them in this series. If they advance, they could be facing either the Atlanta Dream or the Indiana Fever in the semi-finals. They were successful against the Dream in the regular season, but had less luck against Indiana &#8211; going 1-2 against them this season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"bf\">But, if we&#8217;re being honest, this Aces team feels like an entirely different squad than we saw earlier in the year. They do not seem to be slowing down. And if I were any other team in this playoff pool, Las Vegas is who I&#8217;m most afraid of. <\/p>\n<p>More WNBA news and analysis:<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A little over a month ago, the Las Vegas Aces were down in the WNBA standings and sitting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-153477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}