The Indiana Fever, without an injured Caitlin Clark in their lineup, dominated the Las Vegas Aces in an 81-54 drubbing Thursday night. Aces coach Becky Hammon called the losing effort “three quarters of trash” and ripped her team over its lack of effort in a contest that was never particularly close.
The Fever jumped out to a commanding early lead and did not waver, and in turn they snapped a 16-game losing skid to the Aces. They dominated the visiting squad in the paint and, outside of a 23-point third quarter, held the Aces to no more than 14 points in a period. The overwhelming result left Hammon aghast in her postgame media availability.
“That’s a complete lack of professionalism to come in here with that effort,” Hammon said. “Complete lack of focus. They played harder yesterday in practice by a lot — wasn’t even close. 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, as far as I’ve been here in the last four years.”
A’ja Wilson amassed 29 points in the Aces’ lone productive individual performance. No other player had more than six points, as Jackie Young was the only one besides Wilson to make more than one field goal. The squad as a whole went 16-for-61 from the field for an abysmal 26.2% shooting clip and 3-of-16 from beyond the arc for an 18.8% 3-point rate.
All of those missed shots also led to a one-sided contest on the boards, with the Fever outrebounding the Aces by a whopping 37-26 margin.
“I thought they were grabbing and holding us,” Hammon said. “It’s a rugby match, and my team doesn’t want to play rugby back. And so we got our ass kicked. Period. 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.
“We just get punked all night because one team is physical and one is not. One team is three steps behind, and one team is not. They got all the 50-50 balls. I mean, they busted our ass in every kind of way. There’s just no two bones about it. It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever seen.”
WNBA preparing to push season schedule into November as league expands
Erica Ayala
The Aces slipped under .500 on the year and fell to 8-9 with the defeat. Up next is a bounce-back opportunity on July 6 against a Connecticut Sun team they crushed by 26 points just over a week ago. It will take a significantly better effort on both ends of the floor to respond from their worst outing of the season and improve to 2-0 against the Sun.
“Three quarters of trash,” Hammon said. “The offense was trash. The defense was trash.”
This news was originally published on this post .
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