Lynx can't keep up with Aces as champions pull away after halftime

The Lynx entered Sunday night with two victories in a row and three in their previous four games.

But Las Vegas showed them why the Aces are sitting at the top of the WNBA again.

The Lynx went ice cold in the second half as the defending champion Aces pulled away for a 93-62 victory on Sunday night at Michelob Ultra Arena.

"It's kind of tough to play a team as potent as the Aces are at every position in their starting five," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. "... The longer the game goes on, the more separation of talent maybe starts to expose a team.

"For us, we needed to make more plays to places other than [Napheesa Collier]. [She] didn't get very much help in terms of putting the ball in the hole. That third quarter was rough. [Nineteen] points in the second quarter was kind of tough. The Aces are good defensively as well. They had a lot to do with it."

The Lynx made only three of 21 shots in the third quarter and turned the ball over six times as the deficit grew to 26 heading into the fourth. The Aces (10-1) outscored the Lynx 20-7 in the quarter.

"Their starting five is terrific," Reeve said. "They're really, really good with their five. That's the life I'm familiar with. To have players at every position to have players. Their best players played great. Our guards just got dominated in this game. Their backcourt had 38. That perimeter was awfully good tonight."

Collier was the only player in double-digit scoring for the Lynx with 18 points. Her teammates combined to shoot 19-for-60 from the floor (31.7%). The Lynx (3-8) hung around for most of the first half, but the Aces scored the final seven points to take a 54-41 lead into the break.

The Lynx held the Aces' top scorer and defending WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson to eight points. But she had 14 rebounds and four blocks. It was the secondary scorers who led the defending champs: Jackie Young had a team-high 24 points, shooting 7-for-12 from the floor and 8-for-8 from the free-throw line. Kelsey Plum had 21 points, shooting 8-for-11 from the floor, including 4-for-7 from three-pointers.

Chelsea Gray had 17 points and five assists and Candace Parker had 11 points, six rebounds and five assists.

"If you have perspective, which 30-plus years into your career, I started to gain perspective after the 2016 season just about the cyclical nature of teams, the window that we were in and our ability to extend it," Reeve said. "There [were] teams that if you look around at that time, San Antonio, who became the Aces, was one of the teams that was in the cyclical part of it. Sometimes you have to go backwards before you can go forward as we know. If it happens when the draft is really good then you have a chance.

"Look at what they got. Kelsey Plum, who didn't start off great in her career, stuck with it and found a way. A'ja Wilson, Jackie Young, those are No. 1 picks. I think that's three of them. Candace Parker, it's toward the end of her career, but she's a top pick. Chelsea Gray being the outlier, but as we know if we re-draft that [2014 class] she'd go awfully high. I think just for us, what we're looking at this game is not necessarily going, 'Hey, we have as much talent as they do and we're disappointed that we weren't successful.' It's not that. I think we have a really strong, self-aware team. We'd have to play great. They'd have to play awful. That didn't happen tonight."

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the game. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.