PHOENIX — Becky Hammon loves a descriptive example. To motivate the Aces this season, their coach has pulled out props, stories and personalized high school highlight videos. In the hours before Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, she recounted a trust exercise that she did with her group earlier this year, blindfolding one player at a time and having their teammates guide them through a maze of eggs without letting them step on any. There is no WNBA coach who so embraces the power of metaphor.
Sometimes, though, Hammon’s job can only be straightforward. This is one advantage of having the best player in the league on your roster: It can make things very literal. Hammon called a timeout in a tie game with 5.0 seconds on the clock on Wednesday. The Aces were on the brink of blowing a 17-point lead. But she did not have to reach for an example or pull out a complicated explanation or even call much of a play at all. The entire huddle already knew what should come next.
