The New York Liberty lost to A\u2019Ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces 104-99 on Thursday night.\n<\/p>\n
It was the third time the two rival teams had played this season with each being close matchups. Wilson was too much for New York to handle this time as she scored 23 points in the second half to secure the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Liberty played effective defense on Wilson early on as she started the game just 5-for-12 from the field. But by the end of the game, Wilson finished with 33 points and added 10 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith their star power and scoring ability you try to pick and choose where we think we can win some of the battles,\u201d Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco said. \u201c This is a really tough team\u2026 We gave ourselves a chance [to win] and I\u2019m really happy with the way the group fought back.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Breanna Stewart did her best to match Wilson, but it wasn\u2019t enough. Stewart scored 26 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter, grabbed 11 rebounds and picked up 2 steals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the fight,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cToday we lost by five\u2026 We were fighting for forty minutes. It\u2019s hard to have improvement off of a loss but I wanna say this is improvement because we didn\u2019t have to dig ourselves out of a hole\u2026\u00a0 They made more plays than us and sometimes that\u2019s the way it goes and we move on and look forward to Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones struggled in the loss. Ionescu took just one shot attempt in the fourth quarter, and Jones finished the game with just 8 points and 7 rebounds.\n<\/p>\n
However, Liberty guard Pauline Astier impressed with a 19-point, 4-assist performance. The rookie made four layups to start off the second half and keep the Liberty offense rolling. Astier joined Marine Foutoux along with Stewart, Ionescu and Jones to close the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[They are] all dynamic players,\u201d Coach DeMarco said. \u201cWe like all their ability to get to the rim, play pick-and-roll, all shoot the ball well from three, and they [do] a good job with our two bigs, so we\u2019ll continue to look at those lineups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aces guard Jackie Young had an impressive start to the game. The Las Vegas superstar scored 22 points in the first half and finished with 29 while adding 9 assists and 2 steals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Aces shot the lights out as the team made 46% of their three-pointers. Although New York consistently found success in the paint, outscoring Las Vegas 50-34, it didn\u2019t make up for the Aces\u2019 shooting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hit some open ones and they hit some tough ones,\u201d Coach DeMarco said. \u201cYou can\u2019t take away the rim, paint and the three point line so I think overall we gotta keep taking the right steps forward\u2026 we just need to be attached a little bit more and continue to fight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A loose-ball call when the teams were speared by three points with just 30 seconds remaining gave Las Vegas possession despite replay review showing that Wilson had touched it last.\u00a0 The controversial call drew frustration from the Liberty as they were forced to end the game by forcing the Aces to the free-throw line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Liberty will head to Phoenix to take on the Mercury on Saturday afternoon, as they look to bounce back after the loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Liberty lost to A\u2019Ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces 104-99 on Thursday night. It…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":972367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[22870,5229,1339,4144,4548,405,403,1520,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,232],"class_list":["post-972366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aces","tag-america","tag-basketball","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-liberty","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117017366759008280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972366","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=972366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}