The 2023 WNBA Finals have nearly arrived. On Sunday, the Las Vegas Aces will host the New York Liberty in Game 1 of this long-awaited showdown between the league’s two best teams. Before their first postseason meeting, let’s go back and look at the final four games they played down the stretch to see what we can learn.
Between Aug. 6 and Aug. 28, the Aces and Liberty played four times, with all of those match-ups coming after Candace Parker sustained a season-ending foot injury. Three of the games were regular season contests and one was the Commissioner’s Cup championship. Each team had two games at home. The Liberty went 3-1, outscoring the Aces by 53 points overall, and were the only team to beat the Aces more than once this season.
What does that mean for the Finals, if anything at all? Let’s examine why the Liberty had so much success in those games, and how much it matters come Sunday.
The Aces’ Kiah Stokes dilemma
When Candace Parker went down with a broken foot in July, there were a lot of questions about how her absence would impact the Aces. Overall, the answer was not much. Kiah Stokes slotted into the starting lineup, and the Aces went 18-4 over the remainder of the regular season, and are…
