A\u2019ja Wilson did not miss a beat in her first game back after a three-game absence because of a right ankle injury, recording her 130th career double-double with 32 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks to lead the Las Vegas Aces to an 88-80 victory over the Portland Fire on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Wilson wasted little time making an impact, scoring 10 points in each of the first two quarters while shooting 54% from the field and helping Las Vegas take control before halftime.<\/p>\n
The four-time WNBA MVP also moved into sole possession of seventh place on the league\u2019s all-time made 2-point field goals list, passing Seimone Augustus with 2,168 for her career.<\/p>\n
The victory gave the Aces their 10th road win of the season, tying the Minnesota Lynx for the most in the WNBA. Las Vegas has also won three of its past four games away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly on, I was just testing my ankle to see if it was ready to rock and roll,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI felt like I was ready a couple of games ago, but the medical staff said something different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just knew that I had to be aggressive and take what the defense was giving me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackie Young added 19 points and 11 assists for her third double-double of the season while extending her streak of games with at least 15 points to eight.<\/p>\n
Young, who knocked down three 3-pointers in the victory, was recently named a reserve for the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game and will join Wilson in Chicago on July 25.<\/p>\n
The Fire struggled to generate consistent offense, allowing the Aces to take control with several extended scoring runs. Las Vegas used an 11-2 run in the first quarter before closing the opening half on a 17-5 surge.<\/p>\n
The decisive stretch came late in the third quarter, when the Aces closed it out on a 9-0 run, extending their lead to 17 points heading into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Hammon was pleased with the Aces\u2019 defensive effort despite a late lull.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we played (defense) really well for the first 38 minutes,\u201d Aces coach Becky Hammon said. \u201cWe got a little loose late in the fourth quarter offensively, and we weren\u2019t guarding great the last two to three minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we were a little bit more disruptive in the first half. The fourth quarter got away from us, but overall, a good job, pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n
Portland was led by Carla Leite, who finished with 13 points, including nine made free throws, in the Fire\u2019s sixth home loss of the season.<\/p>\n
Leite entered the night leading Portland in scoring at 15.4 points per game and ranked ninth in the WNBA with 5.6 assists per contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we fouled (Leite) a few too many times, but she is an aggressive player,\u201d Hammon said. \u201cShe is a downhill player and a handful to keep in front, so we did OK defensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always think there are some areas we can improve on, even just communication-wise, when she is running the pick and roll, but she is a handful in pick-and-roll actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next, the Aces return to Michelob Ultra Arena for the second set of back-to-back home games this season. Las Vegas hosts the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday at 3 p.m. before welcoming the Indiana Fever on Sunday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u2019ja Wilson did not miss a beat in her first game back after a three-game absence because of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-754078","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\/754078","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=754078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}