{"id":9578,"date":"2025-06-07T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T23:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/humiliated-aces-valkyries-hand-out-27-point-thrashing-hammon-furious\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T23:30:17","slug":"humiliated-aces-valkyries-hand-out-27-point-thrashing-hammon-furious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wnba\/humiliated-aces-valkyries-hand-out-27-point-thrashing-hammon-furious\/","title":{"rendered":"Humiliated Aces: Valkyries hand out 27-point thrashing, Hammon furious."},"content":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Aces find themselves in uncharted territory following their recent defeat.\n\nThe 95-68 loss to the Golden State Valkyries on Sunday marked the third-largest loss for the Aces (4-3) in the Becky Hammon era. It was also their second loss by 20 points this season, the first time they’ve had more than one in a season under Hammon’s direction.\n\n

What’s happening isn’t the Aces team we’re used to seeing.<\/p>Chelsea Gray<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nThe Valkyries set the pace from the start, mainly through their defense. They forced A’ja Wilson to commit three turnovers in the first quarter, and the Aces had seven as a team, both season highs.\n\n

After going up by two points after the first quarter, Golden State led by 21 at halftime after outscoring Las Vegas 34-15 in the second quarter. It was the second time this season that the Aces have been down by at least 20 points at halftime.<\/p>\n\nHammon pointed to the Aces’ lack of effort as a common denominator.\n\n

It’s just that we are mentally soft and we let people intimidate us… and we complain instead of making an effort and saying: ‘Okay, if it’s going to be like that, let’s go for it’. I told them that the effort has to come from the heart. The schemes, the discipline, the habits: that’s the head. Right now we not only have a heart problem, but it’s becoming a head problem.<\/p>Becky Hammon<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n

Wilson, the current league MVP, was held to eight points in the first half and finished with 17 on 5-of-13 shooting. Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase told her team that Wilson could still explode at any moment.<\/p>\n\n

She’s the best player in the world. We all know it. She’s capable of scoring 50. [So] keep that in mind. A’ja is capable of scoring 50.<\/p>Natalie Nakase<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nGolden State consistently threw multiple players at Wilson, rotating double teams on her, collapsing the defense, and even presenting box-and-1 defenses.\n\n

The Valkyries have followed a similar pattern in their inaugural season, staying with their opponents or even building a lead in the first half, only to give it all back in the third quarter or in the final stretch.<\/p>\n\nKayla Thornton achieved the first 20-point double-double of her career, with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Veronica Burton got the first double-double of her career with 14 points and 12 assists, while Monique Billings finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds. It’s the first time this season that a team has three players recording a double-double in the same game.\n\n

Hammon said the Aces’ poor defense was directly affected by missing “wide-open” shots on the other end. The Aces shot 35.5% from the field, their third-worst performance of the season, and just 24% from the 3-point line, their worst mark this year.<\/p>\n\n

Meanwhile, the Valkyries shot 47.9% from the field, their best mark of the season, including 35.7% from the 3-point line, also their best mark of the season.<\/p>\n\n

This team, we have to decide who we want to be in every game. We hold a team to 70 one night and then come out here and give up almost 100. I don’t know if they’ve scored 100 all year. It’s a good old-fashioned butt-kicking. We got outplayed in every aspect of the game. It’s one of the worst games I’ve seen from us.<\/p>Becky Hammon<\/cite><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Las Vegas Aces find themselves in uncharted territory following their recent defeat. The 95-68 loss to the Golden State Valkyries on Sunday marked the third-largest loss for the Aces (4-3) in the Becky Hammon era. It was also their second loss by 20 points this season, the first time they’ve had more than one in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[3740,132,1086,382],"class_list":{"0":"post-9578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-aja-wilson","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-las-vegas-aces","11":"tag-wnba"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}