(Las Vegas, Nevada) - The Las Vegas Aces (29-13) cruised to another dominant win over the Seattle Storm (8-35) on Sunday night to sweep the season series 3-0. The Aces have ended Seattle’s season in the playoffs in each of the past two years. That won’t happen this year, but there is something fitting about the Aces and Storm playing multiple games in September. Las Vegas beat Seattle 114-77 last Thursday, and while the Storm made this one much more competitive through the majority of the game, the Aces ultimately pulled away late to win the game 98-77.
The best part of this game was that we saw the Storm’s young duo of Dominique Malonga and Flau’jae Johnson go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world, A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young. Those two along with Chelsea Gray are the reason the Aces have won three out of the last four championships. Gray may have been the difference maker for Las Vegas as Seattle didn’t have that third major scorer.
The postive is that Flau’jae Johnson scored a career-high 29 points on 10-21 FG, that included 5-8 FG from beyond the arc. She added six rebounds, a team-high six assists, four steals, and one impressive block on A’ja Wilson. Dominique Malonga added 25 points on a highly efficient 10-13 FG. Malonga added a team-high eight rebounds.
Johnson talked about herself and Malonga being compared to Wilson and Young.
“You’re talking about two of the best players in the world, so that’s an amazing compliment. I mean, just seeing A’ja go to work out there is just like, wow, like she not real. But I do feel like Dom is that caliber player. I feel like me just being here, I’m going to push her. She gonna push me. And Coach Sonia talked to me before the game and just like, we got to figure out how to get Dom involved more because we’re not going to win without her. And I think for me, that was just my mindset going into the game, like get Dom involved.” Flau’jae answered.
“I mean, it’s a great comparison, but I’m no Jackie Young right now, but in a few years, I feel like, I could be one of the best players in the league alongside Dom, nobody could guard her. I think that’s what we’re trying to ascend to.” She added.
Awa Fam and Natisha Hiedeman both struggled with their offense. Fam went 3-14 FG and 0-5 FG from three-point range. Hiedeman hasn’t quite been the same since injuring her shoulder. She went 1-8 FG and 0-6 from beyond the arc.
Seattle out-rebounded Las Vegas 35-28. They had an 11-3 advantage in offensive rebounds and outscored the Aces 12-4 in second-chance points. The road team outscored Vegas 36-30 with points in the paint.
Johnson set a new Seattle Storm franchise rookie record for the most games with 25+ points in a season, surpassing Breanna Stewart. This was her 6th game this year tallying at least 25 points. She has particularly been strong to end the year.
After the game, I spoke with Malonga and Coach Raman about the growth they’ve seen from Flau’jae in these recent games.
Malonga told me, “She’s amazing. She doesn’t look like a rookie at all. She really embraced her role this year. She came in, had a big role, and directly been one of our leaders, like we lead by her energy. She knows that, and so she leads us by that. She’s a leader by example. She’s always going hard and I think that’s what got her, got her there and now we know that we can really count on her.”
Dom went on to say: