Quick Three: Sky 93 Aces 85
Defending champion Las Vegas dazzle in second half but Carter guides Chicago to critical late win going into the Olympic break.
The Sky flashed their ability to ‘out-energy’ anyone in the W once again in the opening quarter of tonight’s trip to Las Vegas, but the late-game fade that has followed many of those energetic starts was a factor once again. As A’ja Wilson and company came from behind to take the lead for the first time at 72-71, it seemed as if that late-game fade would result in another loss, but then Chicago, as they’ve done in much of the season’s first half, defied expectations and stole one of the season’s most impressive road wins to date. Solving their problems with letting big leads slip could be a key to a successful second half of the year, but let’s first dive into how the Sky dug in and got the result tonight.
1. Chicago ‘out hustle’ defending champs.
The Sky’s opening energy produced a frantic first-quarter where Las Vegas, somewhat by their own doing but mainly due to the pressure, committed a number of turnovers and allowed Chicago to run out to a 25-12 lead. At some point in the second half, the Sky eventually relinquished that lead, but they pulled out the win thanks to a resurgence of their energy late. A number of timely second-chance scores by the Sky in the fourth quarter and an all-around dominant performance on the glass (35-26 edge) contributed to the victory—with Chicago, the league’s 2nd best offensive rebounding team, marginally outdoing the Aces on their defensive glass (76.7% DRB tonight for Vegas as compared to their league best 80% on the season).
For this Chicago team to bring the energy and knock the Aces in the mouth early isn’t hugely surprising. After all, Teresa Weatherspoon has seen her team do this time and time again. Whether because of youthful exuberance, the opposition overlooking them or something else entirely, the Sky have consistently found ways to get in front early since moving Lindsay Allen and Chennedy Carter into the starting line-up. Yet, most veteran teams—especially this resilient and well proven Vegas group—will eventually respond to that. Once they catch a wave of momentum and get their home crowd behind them, it’s usually game over for the visitors.
And at points in tonight’s fourth quarter, that looked to be the case for the Sky. The Aces started to play almost exclusively through A’ja Wilson, Chicago settled for a couple of poor shots consecutively, the crowd was engaged, and the floor was set for the young team in the equation to wilt and give the champs the result they wanted. As they have in so many other situations this season, the Sky had other plans. Closing out a game like this and converting an early lead (albeit after giving it away) into a key road victory leaves the Sky with a pre-Olympic break result which could produce ripples throughout the second half of this season. The key, as it has been for the Sky’s new coaching staff since day one, is that this level of effort and energy remains the expectation—not the exception. Through 24 games as head coach, I’d say Weatherspoon has done an exceptional job creating and then enforcing that standard for her players based on the on court results we’ve seen.
2. Chennedy Carter evades Hammon’s adjustments.
While changes were definitely made since the last game between these two teams, they weren’t effective in limiting Carter as Hammon’s changes actually saw her improve upon her scoring (+14 points) and efficiency (+13%) from the previous meeting. Much of her scoring, as it often does, comes from Carter’s natural abilities. Her first step is virtually matchup-proof, and the way she glided past the Vegas defense as if they were traffic cones possession after possession late shows how there was just no adjustment that was going to stop her tonight. Yet, there were still moments (like when Wilson registered a key block late) where Hammon’s defense was set up to ensure protection for her perimeter players on the back side. Because Carter loves to fire from the mid-range and can hit intermediate floaters as well, a back end rim protector isn’t always enough, but the presence of both of Vegas’ shot blockers should have been enough to impact more of Carter’s shots.
Instead, the guard was even more crafty than usual in the way she went about scoring. Her post players set her some helpful screens and the off-ball actions to get her the ball headed to the rim also led to a couple of scores, but Carter also cleverly used stationary teammates to create separation between her and the Aces’ front court players on multiple occasions tonight. Whether that’s down to the intelligence of the post player (Cardoso in the clip below) knowing that just “being in the way” is enough or if it’s Carter scanning the floor and seeing a way to creat an advantage, it’s useful for creating high-percentage scoring looks for the Sky’s most important offensive player. Because her most exceptional skill is her speed, this type of intelligence (or ‘court vision’ if you want to call it that) is even more important for Carter’s game. The longer she takes to get to the basket, the more time a player (like Wilson in this clip) has to fight through or around the semi-screen from Cardoso. But because Carter is so fast, the time to make a reactive decision defensively is almost non-existent. Carter has a knack for seeing the floor, making a decision and sticking to it, and that decisiveness and ability to creatively use the chess pieces as they’re already placed on the board helped her to outplay Hammon’s adjustments tonight.
3. Another fast start slips over the final 30 minutes.
In short, the Sky are simply letting too many games slip away after fast starts. Tonight, they got the result they wanted anyways; however, it wasn’t without a big scare that was somewhat self inflicted. From the outside looking in, some of these backslides are probably energy related. Flying out of the gates is fun, but forty minutes is a long time and it’s very difficult to maintain that energy throughout the course of the game. In the best case scenario (like tonight), the Sky find a second wind and go again, but the opening effort can sometimes be enough to empty the gas tank early. That said, starting slow (as the Sky saw before making a line-up change to their current group) is also damaging. Thus, I think the Sky’s coaching staff, more often than not, would prefer their current starts and accept the high-energy expenditure early on in games as a necessary evil that accompanies that.
Instead, I think the changes need to convert early leads into results more often are related to the game management after the initial run is complete. In almost every case in every basketball league in the world, the initial run is not enough to win the game all on its own. Yet, teams are able to get games across the line by controlling the size of the opposition’s run(s). Once up by 20+ points (as the Sky were at one point tonight), there’s a load of wiggle room to survive a run of 10 or more points by the opposition. The key is to stop that run before it gets out of hand. Whether that means a calming player (like Allen) getting the offense into a set that’s a near certain score, a high-energy player (like Angel Reese or Michaela Onyenwere—who was great again tonight) coming up with a huge defensive play or Weatherspoon calling a timeout is not particularly important—the key is that someone can settle the team down and curtail the opponent’s run.
Too often, the Sky just haven’t been able to do that. As a result, they’ve absorbed huge runs, let an opponent back into a game in a few minutes (instead of a few quarters) and forced themselves to play more tight games than were necessary. Tonight is a perfect example. Carter and company found the clutch performance they needed, but they might not have had to dig so deep had they been able to hold their 20-point lead at 10-12 points instead of allowing the Aces to live at 5-8 points away for long stretches of the second half. This is a problem that has no perfect formula for correction, but the Sky stand to gain a lot if they can figure out how to better manage the big early leads their high-energy style is capable of creating for them.