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LAS VEGAS — The 2025 season was proof that the Las Vegas Aces, and this core in particular, know how to flip the switch. The Aces fell to .500 with one month left in the season after a 53-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx and then reeled off 16 consecutive wins en route to a third WNBA title in four seasons.It’s not a habit coach Becky Hammon and her team would prefer to revert to. But Las Vegas is digging itself a hole to start the season, and the defense is the culprit.
“I don’t want to repeat what we did last year. That was not fun the first half of the season,” Hammon said Saturday. “That’s not how we want to come out. It’s not the standard. It was unacceptable last year. It’s not acceptable this year.”
The Aces worked on their defense for about 90 minutes every day during training camp — Hammon even said pregame she thought they had a good focus in their final preseason practice — and showed no effects of that preparation in their season-opening 99-66 loss to Phoenix, a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals. Las Vegas gave up 83 points through three quarters, allowing the Mercury to shoot 53 percent before garbage time set in. A’ja Wilson had only four rebounds for the game and was unable to set the tone for her team’s physicality.
It continues a bad stretch of defense that began during the preseason. Through three games, including the exhibitions, the Aces are conceding 31 points per first quarter and playing from behind the rest of the way. They aren’t conditioned well enough to play as hard as they need for a full 40 minutes. They aren’t executing the staples of their pick-and-roll coverages, let alone the details that separate Las Vegas as a contender relative to the rest of the WNBA.
The guards are supposed to go over screens and the bigs are supposed to come up to touch. The Aces did not do that consistently enough. Instead, they allowed the Mercury too much space from beyond the arc, not rotating well enough to shooters. NaLyssa Smith acknowledged that Las Vegas probably wasn’t prepared for Jovana Nogic — who was playing in her first WNBA game — to shoot as well as she did (4 of 5 on 3-pointera), but that didn’t excuse the rest of Las Vegas’ defensive lapses.
Hammon was especially displeased with the lack of ball pressure, as the Aces allowed the Mercury to comfortably get into their offense without meeting any resistance.
“We’re giving 80 percent of the court for free before we touch anybody,” Hammon said. “It’s like trying to stop an intruder to get to your refrigerator, and they’re already in your kitchen. You got to meet them outside the white picket fence and start defending from there.
“We’re giving 75 to 80 percent of the floor for free and thinking we can defend that last 20 percent. It doesn’t work that way.”
Phoenix had four turnovers through the first three quarters, and at least one was a bad pass that had nothing to do with Las Vegas’ defense.
Last season, when the Aces struggled, the coaching staff put the onus on the players to create the scouting reports and take more ownership of game plans. The players do not have those responsibilities for the 2026 campaign, and they would rather not add that burden.
No one on Las Vegas expected to come out Saturday looking like a championship team. Two and a half weeks of training camp isn’t enough to create championship habits or the discipline necessary to win a title. It will take some time to build into the team the Aces are capable of becoming.
But they also didn’t expect to be outclassed. No matter the emotion of the day with the ring ceremony to celebrate their 2025 title or the opponent, the champions should have been better in their own principles and their own standards, which start on defense. The Aces have too much talent and too much continuity, even with the six months off, to look this disengaged, even if it is one game into the season.
The pregame festivities were a reminder of what is at stake for Las Vegas this year. Opponents will come at them trying to take down the champs, and that requires a level of focus the Aces failed to meet Saturday. They can’t expect to course correct later in the season when the target is on their backs from the beginning.
“The hand is getting heavy,” Wilson said after getting her third ring, “but the crown is getting heavier. We gotta continue to make sure that it doesn’t fall off of our heads.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Las Vegas Aces, WNBA
2026 The Athletic Media Company
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