First title on line for Sun, Aces as finals set to begin
Twenty-three years ago, Becky Hammon and Curt Miller helped lead Colorado State to the Sweet 16 in the women’s NCAA Tournament. Miller was an assistant coach, and Hammon was one of the best players in the country. On Sunday, they’ll match up in the WNBA Finals as opposing coaches, hoping to win their first titles as Hammon’s Las Vegas Aces take on Miller’s Connecticut Sun.
“I have an unbelievable personal relationship with Becky,” said Miller, who credits Hammon for his rise in coaching.
Hammon, in her first season with the Aces, and Miller, in his seventh with the Sun, go into the Finals leading teams with boatloads of success in the WNBA but without any championship hardware to show for it.
The Aces have three former No. 1 draft picks on their roster (A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young) and had four players named to the All-Star team, none of whom were Chelsea Gray, who has been the Aces’ most important player this postseason.
The Aces have had one of the best rosters in the league for years and finished with the best regular-season record in two of the past three seasons — and finished second in the year they didn’t finish first.
But the regular-season success hasn’t translated into the postseason.
But an arduous semifinal series against the Storm has helped prepare the Aces for the stakes of the Finals. Las Vegas won in four games, but each game came down to the final plays. The Aces found ways to respond to everything the Storm threw their way: a corner 3 from Sue Bird that gave Seattle a lead at home with under 2 seconds left in Game 3; a playoff-record-tying 42point game from Breanna Stewart in Game 4. Somehow, the Aces came away with wins in both games.
“We developed how to take a punch. Like, that can’t be understated,” Hammon said. “In the scheme of games, of series, there’s going to be these moments that are like make-or-break moments, and you got to decide in those moments where you’re going to be, and earlier we took some punches, and I saw us fall apart.”