{"id":150109,"date":"2025-08-16T09:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T09:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150109\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T09:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T09:09:09","slug":"one-crucial-adjustment-helped-the-aces-turn-around-a-brutal-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150109\/","title":{"rendered":"One crucial adjustment helped the Aces turn around a brutal season\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Aces got off to an unimpressive start to the 2025 season. Losing Kelsey Plum, Tiffany Hayes, and Alysha Clark in the offseason and adding Jewell Loyd and Dana Evans to the mix disrupted the chemistry the Aces\u2019 core had built over the past few seasons. In late June, the Aces also traded for NaLyssa Smith, adding another player who needed time to adjust to her new team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For too long, it seemed that the Aces would have to battle to even make the playoffs. However, they turned things around quickly in August. The Aces have played seven games in August so far and won six of them, putting together their longest win streak of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moving Jewell Loyd to the bench has worked wonders for the star\u2019s offensive output<\/a>. That is not the only adjustment the Aces made, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a gritty 86-83 win against the Phoenix Mercury, A\u2019ja Wilson said<\/a>, \u201cWe were so harping on the offense and why aren\u2019t we scoring this and why can\u2019t we do that, that we kind of lost sight of defense. And once we started to lock in on defense and form that chemistry on that level, it started to unlock a lot of different things for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Aces look like themselves again\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier in the season, the Aces didn\u2019t look like the team fans had gotten used to over the last few seasons. They regularly let their opponents reach the 90-point mark, and Becky Hammon lamented her team\u2019s lack of effort<\/a>. No game encapsulated the Aces\u2019 struggles more than a 111-58 loss at home to the Minnesota Lynx. It was seemingly the wake-up call the Aces needed. They haven\u2019t lost a game since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since that historically bad loss to the Lynx, the Aces haven\u2019t allowed an opponent to score 90 points in a game. They even held the Valkyries and Liberty to fewer than 80 points in three games. The Aces rank fifth in defensive rating for the last six games, marking a significant improvement compared to where they rank for the season. They also rank second in offensive rating, fuelled by an impressive stretch from A\u2019ja Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The way the Aces have played over these last six games is how they should perform considering all the talent on the roster. Beating the Liberty and Mercury in consecutive games was a massive statement. The Aces may still be making up for the ground they lost early in the season, but they can hang with the top teams in the league when they are at their best.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Aces need to keep up this new level of play<\/p>\n

While the Aces have risen dramatically in the standings, they cannot take their foot off the gas to close out the season. The playoff standings are still incredibly close. Las Vegas currently sits in fifth place, but that can still change. The Aces and Mercury are both eight games behind the Lynx, meaning that there is an opening for the Aces to sneak back into the top four.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also cannot take their eyes off the teams below them in the standings, though. The Golden State Valkyries are only 1.5 games behind the Aces. While the cushion between the Aces and the Fever, Storm, and Sparks is more comfortable, those teams could also pose a risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Aces got off to an unimpressive start to the 2025 season. Losing Kelsey Plum, Tiffany Hayes, and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-150109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115037664927300501","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}