While the line for Game aces vs liberty game 4 prediction opened with the Aces as much as point favorites, that's fallen to between -2 and at most sportsbooks. While. Moneyline: The Liberty are on the moneyline, while the Aces are + Over/Under: The over/under has been set at points. Las Vegas Aces vs. The Aces are ATS in their last 7 road games and ATS in their last 7 games overall. The Liberty are ATS in their last 5 home games. Liberty are in their last 5 games. Liberty are in their last 5 games against the spread; Liberty are in their road games.
On the game, the Aces shot just New York will need to replicate a similar effort if it wants to push the series to a fifth game. The rims looked bigger at home for New York. Sandy Brondello said pregame that the team was making about six fewer threes per game against Las Vegas in the finals than during the regular season, and the Liberty finally got to a more reasonable total by splashing 13 triples on Sunday.
With less than five minutes left to play, Gray took an awkward step backward while she was guarding Stewart and hitched up. She missed a 3-pointer on the next possession before asking out. No WNBA team has come back to win the finals after going down in a best-of-five finals series. Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us. Philippou: Yes, the Finals are a whole new series, but those games -- particularly the August ones -- showed us a lot about how these teams match up. That said, I expect Wilson to play closer to how she did Aug.
The Liberty have excellent defenders in Stewart and Jonquel Jones , but they'll still have their hands full trying to slow down Wilson. Voepel: The Aces' victory over the Liberty on June 29 doesn't have much bearing on this series, as Candace Parker was still playing for the Aces, and Jones wasn't quite in the playing form she is now.
The other four matchups, all in August, are likely indicative of what we will see in the Finals. Those will be games the Aces will review in preparation because they were far from their best in both. Pelton: It's interesting that head-to-head results haven't been particularly predictive of Finals results. Since the WNBA went to a single playoff table in , and not including the shortened Wubble season, teams that won the regular-season series have gone just in the Finals.
And both of those winners, the Storm and last year's Aces, also had home-court advantage in the Finals. However, we've never seen teams play each other this often before the Finals. All of those previous head-to-head series were three games rather than the five times Las Vegas and New York have already met this year. Aces vs liberty game 4 prediction Pelton: Given the firepower on both sides, I think it's more about which team can consistently get stops.
New York was in the regular season and so far in the playoffs when holding opponents to 95 points per possessions or fewer. One of those games was the Aug. Philippou: Defensively, for the reasons Pelton stated, but also because if you ask both Hammon and Brondello, they'd say defense wins championships.
Not just by the pure nature of getting stops and keeping an opponent off the scoreboard, but for these two teams in particular, defense and defensive rebounding fuels offense on the other end, especially in transition. The Aces have had the best defensive rating in both the regular season and playoffs, but they allowed the Liberty to score at least 80 points in all of their previous meetings except one -- Aug.
The Aces' Jackie Young is one of the league's best defensive guards and at 6 feet tall actually can take on just about anyone. Sixth Player of the Year Alysha Clark is also a versatile defender. It makes sense to say defense will prevail in this series, for all the reasons Alexa and Kevin point out.
Still, let's add this: The Aces can be like a runaway train on offense, and that can take over games. The Aces won playoff games scoring 97 points and 64 points, which shows how effective they can be on both ends of the court. Philippou: Jones' emergence into her MVP-level self is arguably the single biggest development that has catapulted this Liberty team into a contender. In the postseason, she has had six double-doubles in as many games; and in the second half alone of Game 4 in the semifinals, Jones came up with 20 points and eight rebounds.
Going up against the Mystics' and Sun's frontcourts is different than facing that of the Aces' especially with Wilson being unstoppable as of late. Another X factor is Liberty forward Betnijah Laney , who has scored at least 19 points in all but one of New York's postseason games and will be critical to helping contain the Aces' high-powered guards. Voepel: Jones is the biggest X factor overall in the series.
Plum averaged 2. Plum, Young and Chelsea Gray all can do damage from long range, but if Plum gets in a groove, it makes Las Vegas' offense all the harder to stop. Pelton: Stokes. Over the course of the season, as well as the playoffs, the Aces' starting lineup with Stokes in place of the injured Parker -- the group that led Las Vegas to last year's title -- has remained dominant.
However, that hasn't been the case against the Liberty. In 45 minutes across the five meetings, the Aces were outscored by 19 points with their starting five on the court. Although Hammon can always go small with Clark in Stokes' place, not being able to keep Stokes on the court will leave Las Vegas painfully thin. Philippou: Liberty in 5.
I went back and forth and wouldn't be shocked to be proved wrong. But at the end of the day, it's hard to ignore how much the Liberty dominated the Aces in their most recent meetings in August. Plus, New York had a much tougher road to the championship series, and being battle-tested will pay off. Voepel: Aces in 5. This feels like the and Lynx-Sparks Finals, when there was such a good case for both teams to win both years.
They split, with the Sparks winning in and the Lynx in The Sparks won 's Game 5 on Minnesota's home court, which is so hard to do in the clinching game of a playoff series. It seems like this year, the Aces -- who celebrated their title in Connecticut -- might win it at home. Pelton: Liberty in 4.