For a game that lost a fair amount of star power between A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark being out, Sunday’s battle between the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever was still an excellent litmus test for what each team could do without top players to rely on.
In a reversal of fortune from the overtime victory against the Chicago Sky on Friday, the Aces could not overcome the loss of the current MVP front runner for a second time in a difficult 84-68 loss to the Fever at T-Mobile Arena.
“We’ve trying to find ways to win basketball games,” said Aces head coach Becky Hammon, whose group has fallen to 1-2 when Wilson is out of the lineup.
“We’ve had to play small a little bit more, we’ve had to scrap. But it’s not just A’ja’s points, it’s her gravity. It’s her pull...her presence gets other people open. Now, we’re in a lot of situations where people are just really cheating off some players and it’s hard to play like that.”