The Las Vegas Aces will look to put their worst performance of the season in the rearview mirror when they play the host Dallas Wings on Tuesday in a matchup of the top two teams in the Western Conference.

The Aces (24-3) rolled snake eyes in a 99-61 loss at New York on Sunday. Las Vegas had an eight-game winning streak emphatically snapped by the top team in the Eastern Conference and was held to a season-low in points, made field goals and assists.

Jackie Young scored 16 points to lead the Aces, with Chelsea Gray adding 15 points and Kelsey Plum putting up 12. A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas’ superstar center, had just nine points and seven rebounds on 2-of-14 shooting.

The Aces scored just 17 points in the second half, and the 38-point margin of defeat was the organization’s largest since moving to Las Vegas from San Antonio, topping a 36-point loss to Connecticut in May 2018.

“There’s a lot of things we did wrong,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. “There’s a lot we can address, but it’s a collective thing. It wasn’t any one person for us, offensively or defensively. It was us as a group. We just didn’t do our jobs.”

The Wings (15-13) have dropped three of their past four games, including back-to-back setbacks at home to Chicago on Friday and Sunday. Most recently was a 104-96 defeat in which Arike Ogunbowale, Dallas’ leading scorer on the season and the fourth-leading scorer in the WNBA, was ejected for bumping an official in the game’s final minute.

Satou Sabally led the Wings with 25 points in the loss, while Natasha Howard scored 24, Ogunbowale added 14 points and Kalani Brown had 13. Dallas never led after allowing a 9-0 run to Chicago late in the second quarter.

The Wings have surrendered 104 points in each of their past three losses, including the most recent time they played Las Vegas (a 104-91 defeat on the road on July 30). They picked a bad time to lose their focus on defense. After playing Las Vegas on Tuesday, Dallas will battle one of the top teams in the East, the Connecticut Sun.

“We’ve got a hard stretch, don’t we?” Dallas coach Latricia Trammell said. “We’re coming off a crazy schedule of traveling plus games, and it keeps hitting us. But these players are tired, you know? Their mental health and recovery is really the most important thing, so sometimes they have to make adjustments on the fly.”

Dallas handed the Aces one of their three losses this season, garnering an 80-78 win at home on July 7.

–Field Level Media

While the Chicago Sky aim for a season-high fourth consecutive victory, the Minnesota Lynx will try again for their first win of August.

The Sky, who are looking to win back-to-back home games for the first time since June 28 and 30, can hand the visiting Lynx their third straight loss on Tuesday night.

Minnesota (13-15) sits a half-game ahead of Chicago (12-15), which owns the eighth and final playoff spot. The Sky, though, have found a rhythm during their three-game winning streak that followed a 1-6 rut.

“The most important thing is how you bounce back in (tough) moments,” interim Sky coach/general manager Emre Vatansever said. “That requires togetherness.”

Chicago has scored 104 points in each victory and shot 52.2 percent from the field and 53.5 (38-of-71) from 3-point range over the three straight wins. While All-Star Kahleah Copper has averaged 24 points and gone 8-of-12 from beyond the arc during the winning streak, Marina Mabrey has averaged 23.7 and shot 9-of-21 from distance in the last three games after scoring 32 during Sunday’s 104-96 win over Dallas.

Though the Sky won back-to-back games at Dallas, their current run began with a 104-85 victory over Phoenix at home. Copper scored 20 during Chicago’s 77-66 season-opening victory at Minnesota.

The Lynx closed July with three straight wins to get back to .500. However, they fell 79-69 at Connecticut on Aug. 1, then managed just 24 second-half points during Friday’s 76-66 home loss to New York. Minnesota has shot 40.2 percent overall (8-for-34 from 3) in the last two games.

“We just didn’t have the will — the collective will — to do the little things it takes to win possessions and win a game against a good team,” Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said following Friday’s defeat.

Lynx star Napheesa Collier (21.6 ppg) returned Friday from missing three games with an ankle sprain to record 18 points and eight rebounds. She scored 17 versus Chicago in May.

Minnesota could have key post performer Dorka Juhasz and guard Rachel Banham back from injury Tuesday. Banham (thumb) was listed as probable, and Juhasz (hamstring) is questionable.

Chicago will be without forward Ruthy Hebard, who was suspended by the WNBA for one game for leaving the bench area and taking part in an on-court altercation during the Sky’s game against the Dallas Wings on Sunday.

–Field Level Media

The Los Angeles Sparks have struggled through much of the season but are hopeful of putting together a late-season charge as they enter Tuesday’s game against the Indiana Fever in Indianapolis.

Though the Sparks (10-18) recorded a 91-83 win over the host Washington Mystics on Sunday, it was just their third victory in the past 14 games. They reside in ninth place in the 12-team league.

Last-place Indiana (7-21) has been even worse with 14 losses in its last 16 games. The Fever lost 82-73 to the host Atlanta Dream on Sunday.

Los Angeles star Nneka Ogwumike averaged 27.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 steals when the Sparks swept two home games from Indiana in the final week of July.

Ogwumike had another strong outing against the Mystics as she produced 20 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocked shots.

The win made the Sparks’ Curt Miller (150-104) the fifth-fastest head coach to reach 150 victories in WNBA history. He is in his first season with Los Angeles after coaching the Connecticut Sun from 2016-22.

“Curt continues to cement his legacy as one of the most successful women’s basketball coaches at both the collegiate and professional level,” Sparks general manager Karen Bryant said of Miller, who also coached Bowling Green and Indiana. “… We’re excited to celebrate this milestone with him as we build the next era of the L.A. Sparks.”

The Fever are playing the fifth game of a stretch in which they play 10 of 12 at home. Indiana is 1-3 so far during the span.

Rookie star Aliyah Boston matched her season high of 25, collected a season-best four steals and also had 10 rebounds during the loss to Atlanta. She is averaging 22 points, nine rebounds and 3.5 steals over the past two game, both defeats.

Indiana had the league’s worst record (5-31) last season and felt it was making progress when it needed just 12 games to match last season’s victory total.

But the long stretch with setbacks adding up has reminded everyone there is still a lot of rebuilding to go.

“We hate going into the locker room with a loss, especially the heartbreaking ones that are within points at the end of the game,” Indiana second-year pro Lexie Hull told reporters. “But I definitely think moving forward, it is encouraging.”

–Field Level Media

The Seattle Storm have played some of their best basketball the past week and a half, but their home fans haven’t been able to witness it in person.

All three of the Storm’s wins in their last four games have come away from Seattle, where they have lost five straight and are a paltry 2-12 this season.

Seattle looks to turn things around during a four-game homestand starting Tuesday against the Connecticut Sun.

Seattle (7-20) remained cool under pressure in Saturday’s 97-91 road win against the Phoenix Mercury.

With the Storm clinging to an 89-87 lead late in the fourth quarter, Jewell Loyd banked in a contested 3-pointer that gave Seattle a five-point cushion with just over a minute to play.

After Phoenix clawed back within three points, Sami Whitcomb swished a fadeaway 3-point fling at the shot clock buzzer that pushed Seattle’s lead to 95-89 with 27 seconds left and effectively sealed the win.

“Shooters shoot,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said of Whitcomb’s circus shot, per the Seattle Times. “We just needed a little bit of luck to go our way.”

Whitcomb finished with 14 points, while Loyd posted 32 to bump up her WNBA-leading scoring average to 24.9 points per game.

Connecticut (20-7) makes its second stop of a four-city road trip that began with an 88-72 win over the Indiana Fever on Friday.

Tiffany Hayes’ 18 points led six Sun scorers who posted double figures, and Connecticut bullied Indiana to a 40-20 advantage in points in the paint.

Even with a 5-2 record since the All-Star break and a playoff spot all but secured, the Sun have yet to put it all together, according to coach Stephanie White.

“I don’t feel like we’re close to peaking yet,” White said. “We still have a lot of room to grow, and you certainly want to be trending that way as you head into mid-to-late August and into September … we want to be peaking at playoff time.”

Tuesday’s game is the third and final matchup between Connecticut and Seattle this season. The Sun clinched the season series with a 93-73 win in Connecticut on July 6 after beating the Storm 85-79 in Seattle on June 20.

–Field Level Media

Marina Mabrey scored 32 points and Kahleah Copper added 23 to lift the Chicago Sky to a 104-96 victory over the Dallas Wings on Sunday in Arlington, Texas.

Mabrey made 8 of 14 shots from the floor and 13 of 14 attempts from the free-throw line for the Sky (12-15), who have scored 104 points in each contest during their three-game winning streak.

Chicago also recorded a sweep of the three-game season series. The Sky posted a 94-88 win over Dallas at home on May 28 and a 104-89 decision on Friday.

Dana Evans made all nine of her foul shots and finished with 14 points off the bench for Chicago, which made 85.7 percent of its shots from the charity stripe (30 of 35).

Dallas’ Satou Sabally collected 25 points and eight assists, and Natasha Howard followed up her first career triple-double by scoring 24 points. Arike Ogunbowale added 14 points before being ejected for making contact with an official late in the fourth quarter.

Tempers flared late in the third quarter between Evans and Dallas’ Odyssey Sims after the latter was called for an offensive foul. The players exchanged words before teammates and coaches separated them, resulting in a double technical foul as well as an ejection for Chicago forward Ruthy Hebard for leaving the bench.

The sequence appeared to ignite a spark under the Sky, who scored 21 of the next 35 points to seize an 82-72 lead early in the fourth quarter. Dallas halted the surge by making baskets on consecutive possessions before Mabrey and Copper each sank a 3-pointer and Copper added two more free throws to give Chicago a 90-78 lead with 4:43 to play.

The Wings (15-13) chipped away, and Howard drained a 3-pointer to trim their deficit to four with 1:49 remaining. However, Mabrey made three free throws and Copper converted a layup to seal the victory.

Sabally sank a jumper to give the Wings a 34-33 lead with 4:45 remaining in the second quarter before Mabrey scored eight points during Chicago’s 13-3 run to close the quarter. Mabrey drained a mid-range jumper and a 3-pointer before capping the Sky’s surge by converting a three-point play.

–Field Level Media

Nneka Ogwumike scored 20 points to lead five players in double figures on Sunday as the Los Angeles Sparks rallied in the final three minutes to earn a 91-83 win over the host Washington Mystics.

Ogwumike canned a short jumper with 2:14 left to give Los Angeles (10-18) the lead for good at 79-78, then fed Karlie Samuelson for a critical 3-pointer with 1:19 left for an 83-78 advantage. Rae Burrell and Jordin Canada combined to make eight straight free throws in the last 33 seconds.

Azura Stevens added 17 points for the Sparks, who won for just the third time in 14 games. Canada contributed 15 points and seven assists, while Samuelson tallied 13 points and Zia Cooke netted 10 off the bench.

Tianna Hawkins scored a game-high 23 points for the Mystics (13-14), while Brittney Sykes added 17 and Natasha Cloud hit for 13 points. Sykes was ejected with 33 seconds left in the game after drawing her second technical foul as Washington lost for the sixth time in eight games.

Washington led 71-61 with 8:42 remaining in the game after Li Meng sank a 3-pointer and still owned an eight-point cushion as late as 6:00 to play. But Los Angeles outscored the Mystics 22-6 over the final 5:59, allowing only two field goals in that span.

Los Angeles controlled most of the first half behind Stevens and Ogwumike, who had their way with a Washington team that has experienced difficulties lately against any opponent with a decent scoring presence inside.

Stevens, who led the Sparks in scoring with 19 points in Friday night’s 79-77 loss, hit all six of her shots in the first half to lead all scorers with 13 points. And Ogwumike added 11 points, going 5 of 6 at the foul line, as Los Angeles established a 43-36 lead at the break.

But the Mystics suddenly clicked into rhythm with 29 third-quarter points, leaning on Hawkins to do the damage. She pumped in 12 points in the quarter as Washington turned a seven-point deficit into a 65-61 advantage going to the fourth period.

–Field Level Media