Storm sweep Aces, winning second WNBA title in three years
By Ian Levy
The Seattle Storm finished their WNBA Finals sweep of the Las Vegas Aces in dominant fashion, taking Game 3, and the title, 92-59.
On paper, the WNBA Finals matchup between the Seattle Storm and Las Vegas Aces was between two evenly matched foes. They both finished the reguar season with identical, league-best 18-4 records. The were both lead by dominant bigs — MVP A’ja Wilson for the Aces and 2018 MVP Breanna Stewart for the Storm.
But, it turns out, there was a lot more separation than their appeared to be. The Storm finished a three-game sweep of the Aces with a 92-59 win, a victory that was all but locked up by the middle of the third quarter. It was just an extension of the story of the series — across the three games, Seattle outscored Las Vegas by a total of 59 points.
Breanna Stewart was unstoppable for the Storm in the WNBA Finals
As of this writing, Breanna Stewart is still minutes away from being crowned Finals MVP but it’s a foregone conclusion. She scored 26 points, on just 14 shots and in just 24 minutes, in the deciding Game 3. Across the entire series, Stewart averaged 28.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, shooting 62.7 percent from the field and 13-of-20 on 3-pointers. Her sterling defense also helped frustrate Wilson, holding her to a series high of 20 points and never letting her break 50 percent from the field in any of the three games.
For the Storm, this is hopefully the continuation of a budding dynasty, briefly interrupted. They swept the Washington Mystics in the 2018 Finals and were denied a chance to repeat last season as both Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird suffered major injuries. For the Aces, they’re hoping they’ll get another chance at dynasty building of their own next season. For as good as they were in the #wubble, the Aces were playing without All-Star center Elizabeth Cambage, who opted out of the season for health reasons, and starting guard Kelsey Plum, who tore her Achilles in June.
It may have been an anticlimactic finish, but the WNBA accomplished so much this year — holding a special, safe and action-packed season, continuing the activist work for social justice and growing their audience by leaps and bounds. Congrats to the Seattle Storm. We all can’t wait to see what they and the rest of the WNBA have in store for us next year.