NEW YORK ā The Las Vegas Aces and Connecticut Sun head home with two very different feelings after the opening two games of their playoff semifinals series.
The Aces are trying to save their season against New York while the Sun hope to close out the Minnesota Lynx.
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Two-time defending champion Las Vegas trails New York 2-0 in the best-of-five series. The Sun split the first two games in Minnesota.
The Aces arenāt panicking, despite needing to pull off a historic comeback to advance to the Finals for the third straight year.
āAt the end of the day, we have neither lost nor won a championship. Nothing has been won tonight,ā Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. āDo we have an uphill battle? Absolutely we do. All New York did was do what New York should do ā defend their home court. Itās a series, we intend on pushing it five games. We got to take it quarter by quarter. Be solid on the defensive end.ā
No team has ever come back from an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-5 WNBA playoff series.
āI love being in the history books, might as well try and start there,ā said Aces guard Chelsea Gray. āThatās going to be our mentality. We must win for our series to continue.ā
New York for its part, insists it hasn't accomplished anything yet. The Liberty just defended their home court. It will take one more win in the next three games to knock out the Aces. The series shifts to Las Vegas for Game 3 on Friday. If the Aces do win the next game, Game 4 will be on Sunday.
āBeing up 2-0 is great, but we havenāt won anything,ā said Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 24 points in the 88-84 win. āEveryone knows that. Did what we were supposed to do, protect home court. Win two at home. Weāre not patting ourselves on the back, talking how happy we are. We didnāt come to win two games at home and be satisfied, weāre a hungry group.ā
The Sun took Game 1 from the Lynx in Minnesota and lost 77-70 in Game 2 on Tuesday night.
āThis is the way a series is, right? Obviously our goal is to win every game, but when you can steal one on the opponentās home court thatās important,ā Connecticut coach Stephanie White said. āI do think that weāre two veteran teams, weāre two very similar teams, and your defense always travels. So whether youāre home or whether youāre on the road, Iām not really sure that it matters.ā
Both Minnesota and Connecticut are good defensive teams and White knows that the winner of the series will probably be the team that has a better shooting percentage.
āWeāre going to be fine. Weāre going to be ready to go. Weāre going to make our adjustments and look forward to Friday,ā she said.
Cheryl Reeve, who won the league's Coach of the Year for Minnesota, has been in this position before. She has faith in her team.
āI believe to be successful you do have to experience adversity. You have to get through the adversity, go through it, go through the lumps, bumps, all of that to get through the promised land,ā said Reeve, who has won four WNBA titles with the Lynx. āThatās the only way. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.ā
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Dave Campbell contributed from Minneapolis
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