CHICAGO — With 1.1 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Sky, Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon was filtering through her mental rolodex of plays. As she tried to design a potential game-winner on the fly in a raucous environment, she was facing an unusual challenge: Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon had been her teammate for five seasons with the New York Liberty.
“I had a couple other [plays] rolling around in my head, but one of them that I was thinking about I know Spoon knows because we used to run it in New York, it’s a [former Liberty coach] Richie Adubato play,” Hammon said. “I stayed away from the Richie plays because I know Spoon knows those.”
In the end, Hammon out-thought her former backcourt partner and dialed up the perfect set. Of course, it helps to have Chelsea Gray and A’ja Wilson to execute what you put on the whiteboard, and those two combined to lift the Aces to a dramatic 77-75 win.
Here’s how it happened:
The play starts with Kelsey Plum on the strong-side block and A’ja Wilson at the corresponding elbow, while Megan Gustafson and Jackie Young are spread out above the arc for spacing. Gray, of course, is the inbounder.
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