Exuberant Kelsey Plum helps defending WNBA champs avoid elimination
LAS VEGAS — Becky Hammon 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, too unmotivated. She could not find that edge, chief of the oft-discussed “intangible” factors, no matter where she looked — in the locker room, at practice, with the starting five or the subs.
It appears Kelsey Plum took that personally.
Friday night in Michelob ULTRA Arena, Plum scored 20 points while snarling, chirping and woofing at the crowd — and the New York Liberty — as the Aces staved off elimination, winning Game 3 of their WNBA semifinal series, 95-81, and forcing a Game 4 on Sunday, also in Vegas. If the Aces can find a way to win that one, Game 5 will be back in New York on Tuesday.
And if Vegas is going to force a winner-take-all scenario, Plum will be right in the thick of it, probably telling everyone about it.
Easily one of the best trash talkers in all of professional basketball, men or women, Plum loves when the crowd, or her competitors, get chippy with her and start yakking.
During Game 1 of this series she got into with basketball super fan Spike Lee, sitting courtside at Brooklyn’s Barclays Arena. Plum went off for 24 points in that loss, taunting Lee during a dead ball and imploring him to talk louder, because she likes it. Friday night in her exuberance, she went to the sideline to high-five an ecstatic, and adorable, young kid 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 — off an Aces’ offensive board — 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 actually be full of twice that many people.
The wheels came off for the Liberty after that. New York called a timeout to stop the bleeding, but Courtney Vandersloot was whistled for a travel and then, furious about the call, a technical as she barked at officials. A Plum free throw and 3 on the ensuing possession pushed the lead to 73-53. It would grow to as much as a 25-point Aces advantage.
“They were competing, they had urgency, they took us out of our rhythm,” said New York coach Sandy Brondello. “They did what they were supposed 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, chipped in 11.
The Aces were stellar defensively, too, 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 that Hammon made pregame — 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 was waiting on that, too!”
Plum, who takes the second most shots after Wilson and usually draws the best perimeter defender, is always the catalyst. And if outside forces won’t provide a needed spark, Plum can create her own mischief.
Asked postgame if she felt Hammon’s criticism of the team and its lack of edge was personally 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, sitting next to Plum, nodded curtly and deadpanned “OK” as the room chuckled.
A few minutes later, Hammon joined her players in the press conference. Gray said they were “talking about you,” before Plum cut in to explain that according to the media, Hammon said Plum didn’t have an edge. Gray, in disbelief, corrected Plum by crying out, “the team!” Plum apologized for misunderstanding while Hammon stared at her, grinning.
“You’re razor sharp!” Hammon marveled, 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 been around, male or female … she played brilliant tonight.”
Another thing Hammon said, and has been saying: The Aces found their edge during the final 10 games of the season, and they’ve carried it into the postseason. Though with Plum, Hammon said, “it’s always there.”
And for the Aces, it’s always crucial.
Email Lindsay Schnell at lschnell@usatoday.com and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell.