The shot went halfway in before bounding up slightly out of the net. But it fell right back through, sealing the Las Vegas Aces’ 90-88 win over the Phoenix Mercury on Wednesday night and putting them up 3-0 in the WNBA Finals.
Now, the Aces sit just one win away from their third title in four years.
“I mean, under Becky [Hammon], we’ve never won a Game 3. This was a must-win for us,” Wilson said. “Just for that sake. I feel like my biggest mentality and the thing that I relayed to my teammates is like, we just need to win one … win possessions, win the quarters, and then everything else will pan out.”
Wilson’s decisive play — the ninth game-winning field goal in the final five seconds of a Finals game in WNBA history — was just as Hammon drew it up. Kind of.
“Get the ball to A’ja, and get out of the way,” Hammon joked.
Wilson knows that moments such as this one add to her legacy. And in the same breath, she acknowledged that right now, delivering on this stage is exactly what her team needs her to do.
“I appreciate Becky trusting me in those moments,” Wilson said. “But those are just playoff basketball moments. Those are moments that you live for. … I’m glad I was able to come to work.”
She continued: “It’s the Finals. … These are the times that you see on TV. You’re watching on TV and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, to be in that building,’ and it’s truly powerful.”
Wilson finished with 34 points on 11-of-20 shooting and 14 rebounds. This was her fifth career 30-point double-double in the playoffs, and it was just the third time a player had a 30-point double-double in the Finals (Breanna Stewart in 2021 and 2024 and Jonquel Jones in 2019).
In true Wilson form, she made sure her impact was felt on both ends of the floor. She hit 59% on contested shots and held the Mercury to 18% when she contested a shot, according to ESPN Insights.
Her game wasn’t played without mistakes, though. With 40 seconds left and the score tied at 88, Wilson couldn’t grip the pass to her on a backdoor cut and turned the ball over.
In that moment, Wilson knew she somehow had to get the ball back and make up for what could have been a costly turnover.
“It may not necessarily be me to get it back, but I knew it was going to be on the defensive end or something, I just knew I had to get something back because that would have crushed my whole soul. … When I saw the next play was for me, I was like, ‘Trust me.'”
“We all had 100 percent confidence in A’ja,” Jewell Loyd said. “Everyone on that bench was saying, ‘We’re winning this game.'”
The Aces controlled the game for the first 30 minutes, building a 17-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Finally, Hammon didn’t have to burn a timeout in the first quarter to get on her team about starting slowly.
Las Vegas implemented the pace it wanted, shut down the Mercury on offense and methodically weathered any sort of response Phoenix made.
But in the fourth quarter, the Mercury played with a new level of energy. In the semifinals, Phoenix had overcome 20- and 14-point deficits against the Minnesota Lynx to win two games. And the Mercury looked primed for another comeback against the Aces in Game 3.
“We threw a punch, and they crawled back,” Hammon said. “I think to a certain degree, of course, I want the game to be played perfectly, but you have to credit them for getting hot and giving themselves a chance to win at the end. … It’s a desperate team — they had to win that one … we were able to withstand that storm.”
Hammon was right: The Mercury were in as close to a must-win scenario without being on the brink of elimination.
In the first best-of-seven Finals in WNBA history, the Aces have to win one more game to be crowned champion. The Mercury have to win four in a row.
“We’ve had plenty of opportunities to go out there and get a win,” Thomas said. “At some point, we have to take it upon ourselves.”
The last time there was a sweep in the WNBA Finals was in 2020 when the Aces lost in three games to the Seattle Storm.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “We’ve got a tough road ahead, but we’ve got to take it one game at a time.”
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