We know the Las Vegas Aces can win a WNBA Championship. They’ve already won two with most of their current core. Yet, when the time came to try and three-peat, they fell to the New York Liberty in the semifinals, after getting swept by the eventual 2025 champions in the regular season.
Jump to the 2025 season, where the Aces dropped their first game against the Liberty. It was the fifth straight regular season win for the Liberty against the Aces, and the Liberty are 8-1 against Las Vegas in the past year overall. New York has built a tough team, so it makes sense in that regard, but surely the Aces must be frustrated that the Liberty keep being able to beat them given their goals of contending for the same title New York just won. And if the Aces have gone this long without beating the top contender for the WNBA crown, does that automatically drop them a few rungs on the championship contention ladder?
What is it about the Liberty that the Aces can’t seem to figure out? It comes down to three things: match-ups, secondary offense, and maybe most crucially, depth.
New York has more matchup advantages than ever
One-on-one match-ups are a pretty big topic in basketball, especially when it comes to defense. Las Vegas has struggled on defense in games against the Liberty, and it’s because New York’s coaching staff has concocted a lethal combination of one-on-one matchups.
At the point guard position, it’s usually Jackie Young vs. Natasha Cloud. Both are great on both sides of the ball, but Cloud is fast. She can rip through her defender and get to the basket before the defense is even set up. On the defensive end, Cloud’s tricky hands force turnovers on her opponent, and she can also switch from Young to Chelsea Gray pretty effortlessly, giving the Liberty a variety of match-up options no matter who the Aces have on the court.
Impact of Natasha Cloud’s defense for the New York Liberty
-Switches on to Gray off ball
-Aces flow to empty side P&R, Cloud able to fight over, Stewie can stay home
-Works to keep the ball in front, help doesn’t have to commit. pic.twitter.com/kwTxWd9LN0— Steve Jones Jr. (@stevejones20) May 17, 2025
One of the other notable matchups between these two teams is Gray and Leonie Fiebich. The Liberty’s decision to put the taller Fiebich on Gray to force the mismatch and slow the legendary point guard down has been incredibly effective. Gray only scored 12 points in Saturday’s game, and Fiebich’s length on her also limits her passing abilities.
Finally, there is the undeniably fun match-up of Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson, both excelling on both sides of the ball. The Liberty seem to have accepted that Wilson is just going to score upwards of 30 points per game, and tried to deny everyone else, which leads into the second area of concern for the Aces.
A’ja Wilson can’t do it all alone
The Las Vegas Aces have the best player in the WNBA in Wilson, and obviously, that’s a huge benefit for them. Wilson scored a league-record 26.9 points per game in 2024 and is already averaging 26.5 points through her first two games in 2025. She’s going to be the one to lead the Aces, yet she can’t win alone. Even if she plays all 40 minutes every single game, the Aces still need some secondary offense to help them win against deep contenders like New York.
That’s really where Jewell Loyd comes in, and the idea is that Jewell will also be putting up 20-plus points per game in these matchups. However, Loyd scored just 4 in the Aces’ first game of the year against New York, but recovered well against Connecticut by scoring 20. Hopefully, Loyd can have a better season than she did in Seattle last year and keep those numbers up.
Young is also incredibly important to the Aces’ offence, and her ability to quietly score in double digits most nights will alleviate pressure off of Wilson. Last year, Young averaged 15.8 points per game, with her numbers dipping a little after she was injured at the Olympics. In two games so far in 2025, she has scored 16 points per game.
But New York still has far more depth than Vegas
Maybe the biggest hurdle to Vegas not only being able to win games against this Liberty team but also win a championship is their depth. After their starting lineup of Wilson, Young, Loyd, Gray and Kiah Stokes, only two players were on the court for more than 10 minutes — Dana Evans and Tiffany Mitchell. Evans scored 10 points, and Mitchell had 0. Liz Kitley only played just over one minute and had 2 points, and Kierstan Bell played nearly six minutes and shot 1-3 from the field. Aaliyah Nye was the only other player who came off the bench, and she had 0 points in nearly 4 minutes.
This lack of depth is why head coach Becky Hammon usually plays Wilson upwards of 35-40 minutes against teams like New York. But while the three-time MVP can deliver, that may not be sustainable for a 44-game season plus three rounds of playoff games. On the flip side, in the New York game, only Cloud and Ionescu played over 30 minutes. Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello went all the way down her bench, and everyone had even just seconds on the court. In turn, players like Stewart and Jones can rest a little more. Plus, the experience and two-way ability of the Liberty’s bench means that often they don’t lose those minutes when the starters rest.
When it comes to the end of the season, less rest can mean players are more prone to injuries, or just don’t have the gas to play full games. Defense takes a ton of energy as well, and the more your stars have to play, the more the defense could struggle. We all know Wilson is capable of leading this team, playing nearly 40 minutes a game, but she needs some help. The Aces need to figure out their bench situation if they are going to compete with a New York team that looks like a well-oiled machine with more working parts.
The Aces had some tough cuts in camp, and don’t have much cap space to work with if they want to think about adding another factor to their bench. They had to keep Bell on the roster because her contract is guaranteed, and they are stuck with that money on the books unless they can trade her out. It seems unlikely there is much of a market out there in a league that doesn’t make many trades to begin with. The team also awaits the return of Cheyanne Parker-Tyus, who is currently out due to pregnancy. She could return near the end of the season, but the timing is unclear.
These may seem like small hurdles on a team that is already a top contender, but if the Aces want to win another title, they need to address those issues, because not having depth on a 11-12 player roster during a 44-game season will end up leaving this team without options when it matters most.
