Chelsea's Gray-tness and what we know about the Aces after five games
· Yahoo Sports
Through five games of the new season, a couple of things are clear about the 2026 Las Vegas Aces: They are deeper and more resilient than this time last year.
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There have been a few examples of that already as the defending champions sit atop the WNBA standings at 4-1. Bench scoring is up, dynamic scorer Chennedy Carter is looking right at home, and the team is tapping into whatever it is that they need to do to stack wins. Nobody is above their role; everybody is locked into the same goal.
Five games isn’t the biggest sample size. However, if your resolve has been tested in all but one or two of those, the outcomes can certainly speak to something.
The Aces’ hunger and togetherness were put to arguably the biggest challenge yet on Sunday in their 85-84 road win against the Atlanta Dream — the only remaining undefeated club in the W prior to tip-off.
Through three quarters, everything was going according to plan. The Aces were cruising towards their fourth straight win, comfortably ahead 75-63. The visitors led by as many as 19 points earlier in the frame, but as expected, the Dream wasn’t going to go down without swinging.
Still, the Aces had the game right where they wanted it, ready to wrap up the four-game road trip and head home for Banner Night this Saturday. Until they didn’t.
The Dream roared back in the last 10 minutes, rattling off a 21-10 fourth-quarter run which almost saw them claw victory from the jaws of defeat. Almost.
What teams have learned the hard way over the last half-decade is that the Aces are never out of it until there are zeros on the clock. With 8.5 seconds remaining, down one, the Aces were still heavy favorites to win — and here’s why.
As Jackie Young prepared to battle Allisha Gray for a jump ball after a tie-up, you’re really in a pick-your-poison situation if the Aces end up with the ball.
If you’re the Aces, as the time is running out, who do you call? The optimal answer is your four-time MVP A’ja Wilson. However, with Wilson sealed under the basket by Angel Reese, somebody else had to answer Becky Hammon’s Bat-Signal.
Fortunately for the champs, there are always options aplenty with Young, Jewell Loyd, and Chelsea Gray on the floor. The ball ended up in the hands of Gray. The ‘Point Gawd’. The player who — alongside Wilson — general managers across the league said they would trust the most to take a game-winning shot.
The GMs weren’t wrong — and that was unfortunate for Atlanta — but as soon as Young tipped the ball into the hands of Stephanie Talbot, and the Aces’ newcomer handed it off to Gray at the top of the key, there was only ever going to be one result.
Picked up by Jordin Canada, who was giving the Aces grief all afternoon, Gray bumped her way inside, got to her spot, elevated above the Dream defender, and swished a fading mid-range jumper. The go-ahead bucket. 85-84 Aces with 3.6 left to play. A dream turned nightmare for Atlanta.
It’s early in the campaign, but you could hear the anguish inside the arena as Gray backtracked down the court, emphatically embraced by her teammates. Atlanta immediately called a timeout.
For the home fans, this game ending in anything but a win after the dramatic comeback was shocking. For the Aces, their championship DNA, their greatness all over the floor, coming out with a hard-fought victory was just another day ending in a ‘Y’.
“That’s who she is,” Hammon said of Gray’s winning basket, followed by a game-sealing steal moments later. “The bigger the moment, the bigger she gets. I have the ultimate trust in the group down the stretch.”
In many ways, this game was Gray announcing her arrival this season. Her first 20-point outing of the year (21), to go along with five rebounds, six assists, one steal, and one block. She shot 61.5 percent from the field (8-13), including 5-8 from beyond the arc.
In totality, that was just a typical Gray performance. That just is who she is. But the Aces haven’t had to tap into the scoring side of her game until now, game five.
And the worst news for the entire league is that Young and Loyd are very much due for their breakouts, with the former currently shining as a facilitator (7 assists per game over the last four) and the latter contributing significantly on the defense.
The Aces were 3-2 this time last year. On paper, that’s fine. The season is just getting started. But in reality, the feel-good factor around the team is incomparable. For a team with championship aspirations every breath they take, this is right where the Aces want to be at this stage of a campaign.
“We can win when it’s ugly, that’s the lesson here,” Hammon said. “Win when it’s hard, win through that adversity. It was a game filled with adversity, especially in the fourth quarter. We hit that adversity button pretty good there, and we were able to play through it.
“A big stop at the end, and (Gray) just having multiple options at the end of games to go to, but as soon as she started to kind of back in (to the paint), I just let her go. I wasn’t about to call a timeout.”
The woman of the moment sounded off on the big — momentum maintaining — win, too. Gray said: “It felt like a playoff environment. When you get those types of road wins early in the season, it speaks to the togetherness, and it speaks to our chemistry and grit down the stretch.
“Even though they made a run, we got to work on not giving up leads like that. It speaks to our grit down the stretch to get it done.”