PHOENIX -- The Las Vegas Aces defeated the Phoenix Mercury 97-86 in a dominant performance Friday night to win their third WNBA championship in four years and cement their status as the league's reigning dynasty.
The Aces completed a 4-0 sweep of the Mercury in the first best-of-seven WNBA Finals in league history.
Aces superstar and league MVP A'ja Wilson led the way in Game 4, finishing with 31 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks en route to earning Finals MVP honors. She said ahead of the clincher she thinks Las Vegas can set the bar even higher.
"That's a good steppingstone to a dynasty-type of feel," Wilson said. "Obviously, you want to win more to really solidify it. But this is something you can never take away from us."
The Aces won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023 as the No. 1 seed after having the best record in the league. This season, they were .500 on Aug. 2 following a 53-point loss.
But through a subsequent 16-game winning streak to end the regular season, the Aces secured the No. 2 seed and weathered challenging first-round and semifinals series that went the distance, before putting together a dominant Finals run that solidified their super-elite status.
"This team has been through hell and back," said an emotional Chelsea Gray. "Everyone stepped up ... we got the best player in the world in A'ja Wilson ... we champions."
For the first 2 months of the season, the Aces were not jelling. They lost their season opener by 14 points at New York, then hovered around .500 through June and July and had a losing record as late as July 25.
For most of the season, the Minnesota Lynx were atop the league standings and the presumed favorite to win the title after losing in the Finals to the Liberty a year ago. But New York fell in the first round of the playoffs, and Minnesota exited in the semifinals -- both at the hands of Phoenix.
The Mercury entered the Finals with a lot of momentum, but the Aces took it away. Las Vegas pulled out a close victory in Game 1, won comfortably in Game 2, and took Game 3 on Wilson's game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds left.
In Game 4, the Aces led by 16 at halftime and 15 heading after the third quarter, during which Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts was ejected on a double technical for arguing with officials. The Mercury, with assistant coach and former WNBA player Kristi Toliver guiding the team, rallied in the fourth quarter and got as close as six.
But the Aces held on and celebrated their third title on the road, after winning at Connecticut in 2022 and at New York in 2023.
