WNBA playoffs: Aces proving to be latest example of how difficult it is to 3-peat

LAS VEGAS — Throughout the most up-and-down season of her short Las Vegas Aces tenure, head coach Becky Hammon kept coming back to a simple big-picture reason for the difficulties. On the brink of an early elimination in the WNBA semifinals, she tapped back into it once more.

The two-time reigning champion Aces lacked the edge necessary to win it again.

“The feel was different from the jump,” Hammon said after the Aces lost Game 2 in New York. “And this is why three-peating is hard. Let’s be real. The whole league has been pissed off for the last month, and my players are in commercials and this and that, and being freaking celebrities and you get distracted. That’s why it’s hard. Because human nature is distracting.”

The Aces’ season could come to a close as soon as Friday night in Game 3 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas. The New York Liberty, who have yet to drop a game to Las Vegas this season, are going for the sweep in what was expected to be an exhilarating WNBA Finals rematch that went the full five-game distance.

Hammon, who entered the series 18-2 in the playoffs and 2-for-2 on championships in her head-coaching tenure, sees the edge in New York. The Liberty were left to watch the rival Aces, playing without two starters, win on their home court last year in Game 4. They missed an opportunity in the final seconds to force Game 5.

“I’m sure they feel like something was stolen a little bit at the end of the day,” Hammon said after Game 2. The Aces did not hold practice or speak to the media Thursday.

Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello, a self-described “glass half full” person, parlayed that pain into a metaphor about scars healing and making one stronger. It’s what the Liberty have tapped into throughout the season en route to the No. 1 seed the Aces held for two years.

“Becky’s over there trying [to figure out] how is she going to motivate her team,” Brondello said before the Liberty’s practice in Las Vegas on Thursday. “But I don’t think we need that motivation because we remember how it feels. It’s just reminding [and] remembering that’s last year. We’re a way better team now. Don’t be burdened by that feeling, use it as motivation and remember what it looks like when we play really well and play the right way.”

The Liberty organization as well as many of its players are hungrily chasing their first WNBA titles. Jonquel Jones is 0-3 in Finals. Sabrina Ionescu, who starred with Aces forward A’ja Wilson in a CarMax commercial, never won in college and had her last chance at an NCAA Final Four ripped away by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, the 2020 Most Improved Player, is an oft-overlooked former second-round pick in a league where most never make long careers.

Breanna Stewart, a four-time NCAA champion, won a WNBA title with Seattle in 2018 but didn’t have a chance to repeat when she tore her Achilles overseas the following April. After winning in 2020, the 2021 Storm lost to a hot Phoenix team in Brondello’s final season in the desert when the format was single-elimination in the second round.

Attempting to repeat in the pros, she said, is different than doing it in college.

“These series are physically exhausting, but also mentally,” Stewart said at practice on Thursday. “It’s like a chess match.”

Courtney Vandersloot’s Chicago Sky team won the 2021 title against Phoenix in a rare matchup of Nos. 5 and 6 seeds. The four standout starters, including Vandersloot, re-signed in the offseason to lift the Sky from 2021 underdogs to legitimate repeat title contenders.

“I think, one, you’re the hunted, right?” Vandersloot said at practice Thursday. “The biggest thing is everyone wants to beat you. And I think another hurdle is relying on things that worked last year [and] maybe not work this year. You feel like you have the answer, the blueprint, because you did it last year and it’s not necessarily the same the next.”

The Houston Comets are the only WNBA team to three-peat. It was a completely different era when they won the league’s first four titles. It’s been done five times in the NBA by three franchises. The last were the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal Los Angeles Lakers in 2000-02. Three-peats are few and far between in any professional sport and nearly nonexistent in the last two decades.

“That’s what great teams do, is to be able to repeat or win multiple times, is being able to find the thing that works the best the next time,” Vandersloot said.

Aces point guard Chelsea Gray understood this in the preseason.

“No year has ever been the same in winning a championship, so you start creating those habits since Day 1 of training camp,” Gray said on a video call in May. “And I think that the rest of it takes care of itself. You kind of just take it one day at a time and don’t look too far ahead.”

Following the Game 2 loss, Gray described edge as the way they dive on the floor, box out well enough the opponent doesn’t touch the ball, show swagger after knocking down a shot and giving all-around energy. Yes, she thinks it can be captured mid-playoffs.

The time to find it is waning or else what’s ahead is an early offseason for the first time in Hammon’s tenure.