Arike Agunbowale’s late prayer isn’t answered as Aces sweep Wings in WNBA semis
Aces #Aces
ARLINGTON — The Dallas Wings had 2.7 seconds to keep their season alive.
The Las Vegas Aces were up by three after Jackie Young nailed two free throws to extend their lead. Veronica Burton grabbed the ball from the official on the far sideline as the Wings ran their play.
Arike Ogunbowale got the ball on the wing, took a dribble towards the corner and put up a prayer.
It wasn’t answered. 64-61, Aces.
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The Wings had their best performance in the best-of-five WNBA Semifinals Friday. But it wasn’t enough as Las Vegas swept Dallas and advanced to the Finals.
The Wings didn’t score over the final 4:59 of the game as the Aces came back from eight down during that stretch.
Ogunbowale led the Wings with 18 points on 8-for-24 shooting. McCowan had a double-double with 10 points and 15 rebounds.
A’ja Wilson, the best player in the playoffs so far, had just 13 points on 4-for-10 shooting, 13 rebounds and nine turnovers. The 64 points Las Vegas scored was the third-fewest this year, including the regular season and playoffs.
Veronica Burton, after playing sparingly in the first four games of the playoffs, played inspired basketball to keep the Wings’ hopes alive.
Coming off the bench about halfway through the first quarter, Trammell had Burton take the assignment on Aces point guard and 2022 WNBA Finals MVP Chelsea Gray. Gray, widely considered to be the best point guard and passer in the league, is a tough guard for anybody.
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Burton didn’t back down from the assignment.
She got up into Gray, staying attached to her from baseline to baseline. She picked her up on the inbounds to force others to bring the ball up and held her own in the matchup. The Wings outscored the Aces by 11 points in her seven minutes running from the first into the second quarter with Gray missing two shots and turning the ball over once.
Dallas was plus-15 in the nearly 10 minutes Burton played in the first half. She didn’t start the third quarter but came in at the 6:22 mark and played the rest of the game.
Wilson spent most of the first two games feasting on the Wings defense on her way to scoring at least 30 points in both of them. But she was quiet in the first half Friday, shooting 2 of 4 from the field with five points, three rebounds and three turnovers.
She wasn’t the only one. The Aces and Wings were the No. 1 and No. 3 scoring offenses in the regular season. But Dallas entered the half with a 36-31 lead as both teams combined to shoot only 39.1% with only six free throws.
But Ogunbowale sparked some juice at the end of the quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers, both coming in transition. The first came after a Burton steal where she dribbled up and flipped it back to a trailing Ogunbowale. The second came after a Wilson miss where Ogunbowale dribbled up the court, went between the legs at the top of the key and flushed home the shot.
She had a game-high 12 points in the first half while Teaira McCowan, playing her best basketball of the series, had four points, 10 rebounds and two blocks.
The Wings were strong in closing out halves in the series — but the same could be said about the starts of halves for the Aces.
Las Vegas scored seven points in under two minutes to reclaim the lead and force a quick timeout from Dallas. The timeout helped the Wings settle down, and the two stayed fairly even the rest of the quarter.
Photos: See Dallas Wings’ final game of season in loss to Aces
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