Liberty’s length too much for Aces in Game 1 defeat

“I thought their length bothered us, the ball stuck a little too much for me,” Aces head coach Becky Hammon said after the game. “You’ve got [to] spread them out … They really were committed to kind of taking away that corner and some cuts. In our pick-and-roll, they would handle the ball, and then we started short rolling where we just need to roll that whole thing, because they were pre-rotating and being disruptive. They came out and punched us in the nose, there’s no doubt about it.”

The average height of the Aces starting five on Sunday was 6′. The average height of the New York Liberty was almost 6’3. The difference of three inches showed mightily throughout Game 1 as the Aces struggled to get things going offensively. Throughout the game, the Liberty were bringing multiple defenders to the ball or stunting at drives by the Aces to make them hesitate instead of attacking.

The primary Aces player seeing multiple defenders was, as expected, MVP A’ja Wilson. She has been Las Vegas’ engine this year and it was clear that New York’s main priority was to take her away. You saw this throughout the game as they double-teamed her every time she touched the ball. She finished the game scoring 21 points on 9-for-16 shooting, but it felt like nothing came easy for her.

“The whole team was pretty much committed to taking away A’ja,” Hammon said. “She had two, three people on her all night, and so we got to do a better job of getting her in space, but also giving her outlets. Then it’s just about playing the right way, if they’re going to put two, three people on her every time, the ball’s got to pop on out of there. I thought their pressure, they picked us up full court the whole game, that gets to be exhausting. You know, there’s a wear down factor there. I thought their defense was great tonight.”

A prime example of this was midway through the second quarter when Wilson caught the ball in the short corner against 6’6 Liberty center Jonquel Jones. As soon as she turned her head away from the help defense, Liberty forward Breanna Stewart flew over from the weak side to double Wilson. Wilson struggled with the length of two New York defenders, losing the ball which somehow found its way to Aces guard Kelsey Plum who was fouled trying to shoot a layup.

That’s just one example of what New York’s length did to the Aces the entire game. Every time the Aces drove, they saw a crowd and it caused them to think too much. Hammon felt, because of New York’s length, her team was overthinking instead of being aggressive and attacking. In Game 2, the Aces will need to be more decisive with the ball and be aggressive as they move the ball to help their offense thrive against this stingy Liberty defense. They also need to find ways to get Wilson in more space and help her when she gets doubled, whether that means cutting from the weakside or giving her an easy outlet.

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Another way Las Vegas can combat New York’s length is by making open shots. The Aces shot 7-for-25 from the 3-point line, good for 28%. Kelsey Plum was the team’s best offensive player on the night, as she hit four threes herself. If you remove her threes, the team’s percentage from distance drops to a whopping 17.6%. New York’s length affected some of those shots, but some of them were wide open ones that Las Vegas’ players usually make. Jackie Young and Aces point guard Chelsea Gray shot a dismal combined 2-for-10 from beyond the arc.

If the Aces want to come back in this series, knocking down their open shots will be huge. It will force New York to respect them more from the 3-point line, which will open up driving lanes and help space the floor. It will also help to combat the edge the Liberty has inside with its star-studded frontcourt. These are two of the best 3-point shooting teams in the league and leaving points on the floor by missing wide open shots is going to put you behind the eight ball big time.

“I mean respectfully, it’s a loss,” Plum said after Game 1. “That’s the only thing that I really see. There’s a lot of things I think I can do better individually and also helping my teammates collectively, but to be honest, that’s the only statistic that matters, especially with this group. We know that and so we have to bounce back Tuesday.”

New York’s length bothered Las Vegas on both ends of the floor during Game 1. Last season’s WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart looked the part on Sunday afternoon, scoring 34 points on 12-for-19 shooting. She scored 20 of her points in the first half while missing just two shots. The reason she got hot — the lack of length Las Vegas had to contest her.

In the first half, the Aces were switching defensively on a lot of the ball screens New York was setting. This meant smaller guards like Plum, Gray, Young and Tiffany Hayes were getting switched onto Stewart after she screened them. Despite being 6’4, Stewart plays like a guard and was killing the Aces guards with her pull-up game and her ability to get to the rim. It also helps that she has a 7’1 wingspan.

The Aces did a better job on Stewart in the second half because they stopped switching on ball screens. It seems like a simple adjustment, but the Aces will need to limit how many times they switch one of their guards onto her. The more they can leave Wilson, center Kiah Stokes or the versatile wing Alysha Clark on Stewart, the better the chance they have at slowing her down.

“She had too many mismatches. We were switching guards onto her and [Jonquel Jones] in that first half, and we’re not supposed to do that,” Hammon said of her team’s defense on Stewart. “They destroyed us in there. Both the bigs — [Stewart] had 20 and I think [Jones] had 11 [in the first half]. So once we kind of took care of that we kept JJ in check, but Stewie was getting that middy pretty easily all day today, and we understand that’s her shot … but I thought the start, you’re trying to dig out of a hole the whole time. It’s not the way you want to start. Especially on the road, you have to have a lot of things go your way and they didn’t.”

All this length caused the Aces to fall into a deep hole midway through the third quarter as they trailed by 18. However, the Aces went on a run late in the third and cut the deficit to six multiple times but couldn’t get any closer. This isn’t the first time the Aces fell into a big hole against New York.

In all four matchups this season, including Sunday afternoon, the Aces have trailed the Liberty at some point in the game by at least 16 points. They crawled out of a big hole in the third regular season game to take a lead, and they cut the deficit to six on Sunday, but they have yet to beat New York. They also are now 1-5 in their last six games at the Barclays Center. Las Vegas will need to find a way to limit New York runs from creating large deficits. They have seen how hard it is to come back against a team like the Liberty before.

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Going into Tuesday night, the Aces have a lot of adjustments to make. Yes, New York will always have more length than them, but Las Vegas now has some idea of how the Liberty are going to deploy that length. Getting A’ja Wilson into space and giving her some outlets should help the MVP get some easier looks. Hitting open shots and being the aggressor when forcing the Liberty to close out should help space the floor better. Not switching when Breanna Stewart is in a ball screen and trying to limit her vision should hopefully help to slow her down.

These things are all easy to say but whether or not they can be executed remains to be seen. Hammon called Game 2 a “do or die” game and the Aces, who are winless in New York this year, know falling down 0-2 is basically a death sentence. The players know what needs to be done and the adjustments that need to be made. Whether they can make the adjustments or not, New York’s length will still be there waiting and ready for them come Tuesday.

“I think first of all, we’ve got to start better,” said Plum on what the Aces need to do for Game 2. “Coach can say a lot of different things, but it’s on players [to] just play hard — play hard the whole game, start to finish. … We’re not going to get foul calls, we’re not going to be able to, a lot of times, have freedom of movement, and we know that they’re going to be super physical with us, but that can’t stop the way that we play and our game plan. I just think for us, it’s a character check — and it’s a different team in Game 2.”