Hammon slams Aces' 'trash' effort in 27-point loss

Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon went off on her team's performance in Thursday night's 81-54 loss to the Indiana Fever, calling it "one of the worst games I've ever seen."

The Fever, coming off a victory Tuesday over Minnesota in the Commissioner's Cup final, broke a 16-game losing streak against the Aces that dated back to 2019. Indiana was without guard Caitlin Clark (groin injury) for the fourth consecutive game, but its offense, led by Kelsey Mitchell's 25 points, was still sharp.

It was the opposite for Las Vegas, which shot 26.2% from the field. A'ja Wilson was the only Aces player to score in double figures with 29 points; their next-highest scorer was Jackie Young with six points. Wilson was 9-of-18 from the field, but the rest of the Aces were a combined 7-of-43.

"That's a complete lack of professionalism to come here with that effort," Hammon said of the Aces, who at 8-9 are fifth in the Western Conference. "They played better yesterday in practice by a lot. I don't know how you step onto the floor with 20,000 people in the stands and perform like that. It is the worst offensive night I've ever seen [since] I've been here in the last four years."

Hammon wasn't any happier with the Aces' defense, which has been a concern all season. Asked what was most problematic, Hammon cited the abundance of layups the team allowed.

"They were in the paint [getting] downhill layups all night," Hammon said. "I don't really have any answers for you. The effort and the focus just were not there. I thought they were grabbing and holding us, so it's a rugby match. My team doesn't want to play rugby, so we get our ass kicked. There has to be some fight back if they're going to allow that kind of physicality. My team has to step up and match that physicality, period.

"One team is fickle, and one team is not. One team is three steps behind; one team is not. They got all the 50/50 balls. They busted our ass in every kind of way. There's just no bones about it. It's one of the worst games I've ever seen."

Wilson, the reigning league MVP, acknowledged the Aces' defensive inconsistency.

"Offense is going to be crap here and there, that's just part of the game," said Wilson, who had an ice bag on her right (non-shooting) shoulder during the postgame news conference. "But the defense has to be something we really have to understand and dig deep to do. Our defense has to be 10 times better.

"We're going to go back to film. The beautiful thing about our league is we have another day, another game to try to do better. Some nights we show greatness, sometimes we show crap. That ain't what championship teams are. So we've got to get back on track. We have to really lean on each other now more than ever. I'm not going to let any of my teammates hold their heads down, because they're way too good."

Hammon and the Aces have talked all season about how they have been so up and down. On Sunday, the Aces ended the six-game winning streak of the Phoenix Mercury, who had been the league's hottest team. Las Vegas scored at least 80 points in the five games before Thursday, going 3-2 in those games.

"If I knew which one was coming, I could prepare myself a little bit better," Hammon said of her team's personality from game to game. "We go out to Phoenix. That was the best team in the league going into that night, and we put a solid four quarters together. Tonight, we put a third quarter together and [other than] that, three quarters of trash. The offense was trash, the defense was trash. And at some point you have to say that's a little more us, because it's happened [against] multiple opponents.

"They just wanted it more than us, and I think that's the most disturbing thing, when people want it more than you. Because that's effort and that's heart."

The Aces won WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023, Hammon's first two seasons in Las Vegas. Last season, they advanced to the semifinals, where they lost to eventual WNBA champion New York. But this season has been a roller coaster.

Six of the Aces' nine losses this season have been by double digits, including a 27-point loss to the Golden State Valkyries on June 7 and a 20-point loss to the Seattle Storm on May 25.

Hammon was asked what the Aces can do to improve their consistency.

"Maybe we've got to shake something up, shake up the starting lineup," Hammon said. "It's really hard to know as a coach what team you're getting on a given night. If I knew what buttons to push to make sure our effort was appropriate every night, I'd be pushing those buttons.

"It's not a button I want to have to push, if I have to [start] your engine. You've got to come with your engine started ... with the gas pedal down. We would have won five or six more games if we just played harder. That's a way to flit away a season. If we just tried harder, we'd win more games."