The Dallas Wings return to their home floor to chase a rare win against the enigmatic Las Vegas Aces on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas.
The Aces (10-11) took the first game of the season series between the teams 88-84 on June 13 in Las Vegas and head to the Dallas area on the heels of a 104-102 home win over expansion Golden State on Saturday.
A’ja Wilson scored 34 points and hauled in 16 rebounds in the victory. Jackie Young poured in 30 points — including the final 10 for the Aces — to help Las Vegas snap a two-game losing streak while avenging a 27-point loss at Golden State.
The victory drew the Aces within a game of .500 for the season.
“It’s always important to win our home games,” Young said. “And we know what happened last time we played the Valkyries there.”
Wilson, the reigning WNBA MVP, scored 25 of her points in the first half to keep the Aces afloat and set the stage for the comeback win. It was the third time this year that Wilson produced at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in a game.
“It was a little bit of a gut check (for us),” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “We’ve been losing those close ones, so it was big for us to execute like that down the stretch.”
The Wings (6-16) head home after a 102-83 defeat at Indiana on Sunday that punctuated a winless three-game road trip in which Dallas was blown out in all three contests. Dallas gave up a league-high 64 points in the first half and trailed by as much as 29 points midway through the third quarter.
Rookie Paige Bueckers led the Wings with 21 points while Li Yueru added 16. Rookies JJ Quinerly (13 points) and Aziaha James (11) also scored in double figures.
Dallas has produced four of its six wins this season at home and has struggled with its consistency from game to game and possession to possession.
“There’s no skipping steps to building what we want to build here,” Bueckers said. “Everybody goes through adversity. And we’re not going to get out of who we are, get out of our process, get out of what we do every single day, just because the results haven’t shown up yet. It’s early, and this is just part of the journey that we have here.”
–Field Level Media
