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    • Kelsey Plum lifts Las Vegas Aces to Game 3 victory over New York Liberty
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    Kelsey Plum lifts Las Vegas Aces to Game 3 victory over New York Liberty

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    LAS VEGAS – Becky Hammon has spent most of the 2024 WNBA season looking for an edge.

    The coach of the back-to-back WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, seeking the league’s first three-peat since 1999, wondered if her team was too tired, too distracted and too unmotivated. She couldn’t find that advantage, the most important of the oft-discussed ‘intangible’ factors, wherever she looked: in the dressing room, in training, in the starting five or among the substitutes.

    It seems like Kelsey Plum took that personally.

    Friday night at Michelob ULTRA Arena, Plum scored 20 points while snapping, chirping and booming at the crowd – and the New York Liberty – as the Aces avoided elimination, winning Game 3 of their WNBA semifinal series, 95-81, and a Game 4 on Sunday, also in Vegas. If the Aces can find a way to win it, Game 5 will be back in New York on Tuesday.

    And if Vegas wants to force a winner-take-all scenario, Plum will be right in the middle of it and probably telling everyone about it.

    Plum is easily one of the best trash talkers in professional basketball, men or women, and loves when the crowd, or her competitors, get up to her and start howling.

    During Game 1 of this series, she struck up a conversation with basketball superfan Spike Lee while sitting courtside at the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn. Plum went off for 24 points in that loss, taunting Lee during a dead ball and begging him to talk louder because she likes it. Friday night, in her exuberance, she went to the sidelines to high-five an ecstatic and adorable little boy in an Aces jersey.

    After a back-and-forth first half gave the Aces a slim 53-49 lead at the break, Vegas exploded in the third quarter, outscoring the Liberty 21-6, including a 16-0 run. When Plum hit a 3 – on the offensive board of an Ace – to go up 69-53 with 1:42 to play in the third, the crowd of 10,369 exploded. It sounded like the building might have twice as many people in it.

    Then the wheels came off for the Liberty. New York called a timeout to stop the bleeding, but Courtney Vandersloot was whistled for a trip and then, enraged by the call, a technical as she barked at the officials. A Plum free throw and 3 on the ensuing possession made it 73-53. It would grow to an aces advantage of no less than 25 points.

    “They were competing, they had urgency, they took us out of our rhythm,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said. “They did what they had to do.”

    Guard Jackie Young (24 points) led all scorers, while A’ja Wilson (19 points, 14 rebounds) was her usual MVP self. Guard Tiffany Hayes, named sixth woman of the year on Friday, scored 11.

    The Aces were also excellent defensively, holding Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu scoreless until the fourth quarter. She finished with just four points. Breanna Stewart led New York with 19.

    In response to a comment Hammon made before the game — that she’s been waiting all season for all her guards to click on all cylinders at the same time — Chelsea Gray (10 points, seven assists) said, “Man, we were waiting for that. at!”

    Plum, who takes the most shots after Wilson and usually draws the best perimeter defender, is always the catalyst. And when outside forces don’t provide the necessary spark, Plum can get into mischief of her own.

    When asked after the game if she personally thought Hammon’s criticism of the team and lack of edge was unfair, Plum gave a long, somewhat rambling answer about how she “plays hard all the time.” She ended it by saying, “So no offense, but that didn’t apply to me.”

    Gray, who was sitting next to Plum, nodded curtly and deadpanned, “Okay,” as the room chuckled.

    A few minutes later, Hammon joined her players at the press conference. Gray said they were “talking about you,” before Plum intervened to explain that the media reported Hammon saying Plum had no edge. Gray corrected Plum in disbelief by exclaiming, “The team!” Plum apologized for the misunderstanding as Hammon stared at her with a grin.

    “You’re razor sharp!” Hammon was amazed, as the room laughed.

    Hammon, who coached eight seasons in the NBA, called Plum “competitive as hell, one of the greatest competitors I’ve ever faced, male or female… she played brilliantly tonight.”

    Another thing Hammon said and has said: The Aces found their advantage over the last ten games of the season, and they carried that into the postseason. But with Plum, Hammon said, “It’s always there.”

    And for the Aces it is always crucial.

    Email Lindsay Schnell at [email protected] and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell.

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