‘Three-peating is hard’: how loss of focus cost the Las Vegas Aces a dynasty

Around this time last year the Las Vegas Aces appeared to be on the brink of becoming a dynasty. They’d just brushed aside the New York Liberty to become the first WNBA team to win back-to-back championships in more than two decades, reducing a much-hyped clash of the superteams to one-way traffic. Those Aces were one of the best teams ever seen in men’s or women’s basketball, at least since the KD Warriors. It wasn’t just their 34 regular-season wins (more than any WNBA team in history) or their record-breaking efficiency numbers. It was the execution, the intensity, the discipline and attention to detail: they were so unselfish, so dialed-in and everyone looked like they were having a blast. Their vaunted foursome of A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray were each under contract for at least another year. What could go wrong?

Related: Liberty through to WNBA finals after knocking out defending champion Aces

But the Aces’ bid for a three-peat stumbled out of the gate and never quite picked up steam. Candace Parker re-signed during free agency, before announcing her retirement at the start of training camp. They stumbled to a 6-6 start while Gray worked her way back from a foot injury suffered during last year’s WNBA finals, racking up as many losses in the first month as they did all of last year. Wilson continued to show that she is the best player on the planet, earning a third Most Valuable Player award and becoming only the second player to win it unanimously, but Las Vegas were too often undone by backcourt inconsistency and the loss of their defensive identity. Wilson hinted at that back in August after her 42-point eruption was wasted in a defeat to one of the league’s worst teams.

“We’ve seen snippets in games that we have enough to get the job done,” Wilson said. “It’s just a matter of, do we want to get it done? The confidence is there, the talk is going to always be there. But are we going to put the work in to get it done? Are we going to do the extra little things? And that’s what’s going to take us there.”

The Aces did tear off a couple winning streaks right before the Olympic break (winning 10 from 11) and to close the regular season (nine from 10) to earn the No 4 seed, but in the end their self-accountability wasn’t enough. A strangely ponderous season finally came to end on Sunday afternoon with a 86-72 loss to the Liberty at Michelob Ultra Arena in the WNBA semi-finals.

Since clinching their second straight title on New York’s home floor last October, the Aces went on to lose five straight to the Liberty: all three regular-season meetings and the first two games of their best-of-five semi-final series. Las Vegas were finally able to pull one back in Game 3, but were a frigid 7-of-30 from behind the arc and shot 32.8% overall in Sunday’s finale as New York closed the show in style.

“This team was put together to take us out, and they did,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “I think their group earned it. They earned it all year.”

The Aces’ ouster was a microcosm of their entire season. Wilson turned in another standout performance with 19 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots, but found herself undermanned against the Liberty frontcourt pairing of Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, who combined for 33 points and 20 rebounds. The backcourt offered up a silhouette of last year’s clockwork efficiency with Gray (six assists, seven points), Young (1-for-10 from the floor) and Kelsey Plum (5-for-16) all below their standard. On the other end, New York’s ability to spread the floor and fill it up from beyond three-point range exposed the Aces’ defensive shortcomings.

“We’ve changed the way this league plays,” Hammon said. “That’s something that our team can be proud of. We sped it up and spaced it out. I think it’s been great for our game.”

But perhaps the biggest factor in the Aces’ regression was the loss of their competitive edge, something Hammon has hinted at for months. Part of it could be down to physical and mental fatigue: the entirety of the Aces’ core four played in the Paris Olympics while much of the league enjoyed a three-week break. But the Las Vegas coach delivered her bluntest assessment yet after Tuesday night’s Game 2 defeat in Brooklyn that pushed the Aces to the brink of elimination.

“The feel was different from the jump [of the season],” Hammon said. “And this is why three-peating is hard, let’s be real. The whole league has been pissed off for the last eight months and my players are in commercials, and this and that and being fricking celebrities. And you get distracted. That’s why it’s hard. Because human nature is distracting.”

Hammon was less caustic after Sunday’s ouster, her first season-ending defeat after winning titles in her first two years on the sidelines, but the message was consistent. The Aces were beaten by a better team, but their loss of focus and intensity was all on their side and entirely preventable.

“We’re going to have a lot of hard learning lessons,” Hammon said. “It hurts now but I promise it’s going to hurt tomorrow, probably worse, because it sets in the next day. You’ve got to build habits and you’ve got a work in a way that you believe you deserve to win. That you believe you deserve to win. At the end of the day, our shortcomings stood out a little bit.

“We have some great things to build on. We don’t have it every year. That’s not the way this works. You don’t get to flip a switch. But it’s the beautiful thing about sports, actually. The work and the commitment and the buy-in and the play-hard and the want-to and the will, will always show up in the end.”

Simply wanting it more will only be part of it. The Aces have decisions to make on Plum, Alysha Clark and Tiffany Hayes, who are all unrestricted free agents. Already squeezed on cap space, the depth issues that go back to their championship years won’t be easily resolved. And they won’t pick until 16th in next year’s draft after having their first-round pick rescinded by the league after an investigation found that they violated rules regarding workplace policies and impermissible player benefits.

With a prime Wilson in the fold, the Aces will never be far from the top. But Hammon is keenly aware there’s plenty of work to do.

“New York has had really great will and determination this whole year” Hammon said. “We talked a lot of smack last year. I’m sure they heard it, and they got to smack us next year. For us, we will have a long offseason. And for us, we will be back next year, and I’m sure the focus level will be very different. I can pretty much guarantee that.”