LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas Aces are two wins away from their third WNBA title in four years.
The No. 2 seed Aces took a commanding 2-0 lead over the No. 4 seed Phoenix Mercury in the best-of-seven 2025 WNBA Finals with a 91-78 Game 2 win on Sunday, Oct. 5 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.
Aces guard Jackie Young finished with a game-high 32 points, shooting 12-of-20 from the field and 3-of-7 from the 3-point line, while A’ja Wilson added 28 points and 14 rebounds.
The Aces duo of Young and Wilson are among the winners of Game 2 of the WNBA Finals, while Mercury forward Satou Sabally rounds up the list of losers after suffering an apparent ankle injury in the loss.
WNBA FINALS, GAME 2: Aces take commanding 2-0 lead in WNBA Finals with Game 2 rout of Mercury
Winners
Jackie Young
Jackie Young was in street clothes during the Aces’ practice on Saturday, with head coach Becky Hammon admitting that Young’s “legs were heavy” due to fatigue. But Young looked fresh for Game 2 on Sunday and dropped 32 points, tying her playoff career high. Young scored 21 of her 32 points in the third quarter, the most scored in a single quarter in WNBA Finals history. “Last game, (Young) had no legs. No lift. Apparently she went and found some legs because she was cooking today… She’s a bad, bad girl,” Hammon said.
A’ja Wilson
A’ja Wilson scored 20 of her 28 points in the first half, becoming the third player in WNBA Finals history to score 20 or more points in the first half. Wilson also recorded 14 rebounds, three assists and one steal. She finished just shy of her ninth 30-plus point playoff game. If Wilson scored 30 points, Wilson and Young would’ve become the first duo to each score 30-plus points in a WNBA Finals Game. ‘I dropped the ball on that one. Sorry, Jack,’ Wilson joked after the game.
Aces Big 3
Las Vegas’ superstar trio of A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray were borderline unstoppable on Sunday. Wilson (28 points, 13 rebounds), Young (32 points, eight rebounds) and Chelsea Gray (10 points and 10 assists) combined for 70 of the Aces 91 points and the Mercury had no answer. ‘They’re studs… That is why the expectation is so high, because of those three,’ Hammon said. Meanwhile, Phoenix’s Big 3 of Alyssa Thomas (10 points, six rebounds, five assists), Satou Sabally (22 points, nine rebounds) and Kahleah Copper (23 points, three rebounds) combined for 55 of the Mercury’s 78 points.
Alyssa Thomas sets assist record
Not much went right for the Mercury, but Alyssa Thomas passed Courtney Vandersloot to become the all-time leader in assists in WNBA postseason history with 391 (and counting). Thomas finished with 10 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals in the Game 2 loss. A small consolation prize in the loss.
Losers
Satou Sabally’s possible ankle injury
The Mercury could be in trouble if Satou Sabally’s ankle injury, which she suffered in the 3:57 mark of the fourth quarter, lingers. The Phoenix star had a collision with Aces forward A’ja Wilson that was ruled just a common foul. However, Sabally did not return to play after the incident and was limping as she walked to the bench. Postgame, Tibbetts mentioned that he pulled Sabally because the team was “being smart with going forward.” When asked personally how she was doing after her injury, Sabally simply responded, “Fine.”
Mercury 3-point shooting
Kahleah Copper got the Mercury on the board with a 3-point shot, but Phoenix was ice cold beyond the arc the rest of the game. The Mercury missed 15 consecutive 3-point attempts at one point and finished shooting a dismal 17.9% (5-of-28) from the 3-point line, marking their second-worst 3-point performance this postseason. The 3-point shot was crucial to the Mercury’s two double-digit comeback wins over the Minnesota Lynx in the semifinals, but as the Mercury’s deficit stretched to as many as 22 points on Sunday, they couldn’t get it going from 3 and ‘tried to force it a little,” Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts said, adding ‘we were pretty stagnant offensively.’ The Mercury are 2-1 in the playoffs when they score 10 or more 3-pointers.
Nate Tibbetts’ coaching decisions
Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts’ inexperience in the WNBA Finals showed mightily in Game 2. Tibbetts didn’t go deeper into his bench, opting to use an eight-person rotation until the lead ballooned to nearly twenty. The bench players he did play early with his starters (DeWanna Bonner, Sami Whitcomb and Kathryn Westbeld) only scored eight total points for the entire game. What’s more, Tibbetts shockingly did not call a timeout as the Aces continued stacking sequences during a brutal 30-point third quarter.
Mercury’s depth
Tibbetts emptied his bench with 3:58 remaining in the fourth quarter as the Mercury trailed the Aces 90-73, essentially waving the white flag. The Mercury entered the postseason with the league’s highest scoring bench, but it’s been virtually nonexistent in the WNBA Finals so far. The Mercury’s bench was outscored 41-16 in Game 1 and 16-8 in Game 2. DeWanna Bonner was held to four points in 23 minutes in Game 2, shooting 1-of-5 from the field and 0-of-2 from the 3-point line, while Sami Whitcomb was scoreless (0-of-3 FG, 0-of-2 3PT) in 14 minutes. The Mercury have struggled to find offensive production outside of their Big 3 so far.
WNBA referees
It’s going to sound like a broken record at this point, but the league’s officials made and missed several calls on Sunday that either infuriated players, like Phoenix Mercury star Alyssa Thomas, or the crowd at Michaelob Ultra Arena. Like Game 1, chants of “Refs, you suck” rang out from the stands as fans displayed their displeasure with the officiating. Thomas also gave the refs an earful multiple times over what she felt like were missed fouls.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.