All but one member of the Sun had exited the court as the Aces’ WNBA title celebration broke out around the free throw line closest to Las Vegas’s bench. 2021 League MVP Jonquel Jones remained, however, wanting to deliver a final on-court message to the player she had spent four games battling. Amid the jubilance, the Connecticut star walked across half court and found Aces star A’ja Wilson for an embrace. “It was just a congratulations,” Wilson said. “So before I even got my interview with [ESPN’s Holly Rowe], I had to go speak to her because she played her heart out.”
Then, as Wilson rejoined her teammates, Jones strode toward one of the tunnels leading to the underbelly of Mohegan Sun Arena and gave the crowd one last round of applause in gratitude.
Against Las Vegas, Jones tried to bring her franchise what Wilson eventually brought hers: their first-ever championship. She scored a team-high 20 points in Connecticut’s blowout Game 3 win and notched five of her 13 points in a crucial third-quarter stretch in Game 4, while adding two blocks—both on Wilson and both of which jolted the sellout home crowd of 9,652 people. But to the 28-year-old forward, such successes, at least in the present, are marred by the emotions of another difficult defeat.
