The Las Vegas Aces beat the Minnesota Lynx in a game decided in crunch time and moved into the No. 1 spot in the WNBA standings, a result that also pushed Las Vegas atop the Western Conference Commissioner’s Cup race.
The victory — one of seven league games this week decided in overtime or by one possession — gave the Aces control of both the standings and a clearer path to the Cup final. With the Aces needing one win in their next two games against Dallas and Phoenix, a single result will send Las Vegas to the Commissioner’s Cup final for the third time in five years.
The numbers underline the swing: the Aces claimed the league’s top position and moved into first in the Cup’s West bracket in the same night. That double gain shifts short-term stakes for both playoff seeding chatter and the midseason prize, because a Cup final berth gives the Aces a tangible, immediate target as the regular season tightens.
The week’s volatility—seven tightly decided games—frames the result. Close finishes have scrambled the table and handed short windows of leverage to teams that can finish tight games; Las Vegas turned one of those windows into a full takeover. For Minnesota, the loss cost the Lynx their hold on first and left them chasing again in a crowded race.
In the East, the New York Liberty clinched their bracket’s Commissioner’s Cup bid with one game to go, propelled by the league’s longest current winning streak and a recent defensive surge. Over the last five games New York posted the WNBA’s best defensive rating, an achievement that came even as the team started a rookie and Marine Johannès in the backcourt during that span.
That defensive progression arrived with a historic note: Breanna Stewart made history on Sunday with a career-high seven blocks, becoming the 16th player in WNBA history to record seven blocks in a single game. Stewart’s performance capped a week in which New York’s frontcourt — Stewart and Jonquel Jones — continued to be described as the best in the league despite both players being described by evaluators as not fully at their peaks. The paradox — an all-time-caliber pairing producing elite results while skeptics say neither is at her best — remains one of the league’s more interesting frictions.
The Aces’ climb reshuffles immediate priorities. Securing at least one win in the next two games against Dallas and Phoenix would lock in Las Vegas’s Cup-final appearance and cement the No. 1 position for the short term. Lose both and the Aces would find themselves vulnerable to the same late-week chaos that helped them rise this time, because the standings are thinly separated and every one-possession outcome ripples through the table.
What comes next is blunt: Las Vegas controls its fate. One win in two games sends the Aces to the Commissioner’s Cup final and strengthens their claim on the top of the WNBA standings; failure to get that win hands the initiative back to rivals in a week when a single possession has decided multiple matchups. The real question now is whether a team that seized momentum in crunch time can close the job against Dallas or Phoenix — and whether the Liberty’s defensive stride and Stewart’s shot-blocking peak will be enough to alter the chase for control in the East.
