By Shawn McCullough

The Aces dropped their second straight game in a 77-67 loss to the Minnesota Lynx at Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay.

“That’s probably as bad as a game as we played all season,” said head coach Bill Laimbeer. “Disappointing on our end, they were not there.”

Las Vegas dropped their second game in two weeks to the Lynx after losing 90-89 in Minneapolis back on June 25^th.

“They wanted it a lot more than we did,” said Laimbeer. “The effort level that we put out today was not acceptable.”

The Aces were led by guard Kelsey Plum, who came off the bench and scored 18 points.

“We have to be ready from the jump,” said Plum. “We dug ourselves a big hole and it is really hard to get back in the game.”

Olympian A’ja Wilson scored 13 points, while Dearica Hamby added 12 points and nine rebounds.

“We just got a little lazy, standing around,” said Hamby about their offense. “We want to play with pace, but we weren’t really focused and locked in.”

With the loss, the Aces dropped to 14-6 on the season and remain one game behind the first place Seattle Storm.

The Aces will have one final game on Sunday in Dallas against the Wings, before a long one-month break for the WNBA All-Star Game on July 14^th and for the Olympics.

Las Vegas Aces – http://aces.wnba.com

Game Notes:

• The Aces shot just 35.8% from the field, while Minnesota shot 45.3%.
• Las Vegas has used the same starting lineup for the first 19 games, until tonight since Liz Cambage is currently with the Australian National Team.  She was replaced at center by Kiah Stokes.
• Current Lynx and former Aces guard Kayla McBride returned for the first time with her new team back to Las Vegas.  She was greeted with a scoreboard tribute during pre-game introductions.

Game Starters:

F – 22 A’ja Wilson
F – 3 Riquna Williams
C – 41 Kiah Stokes
G – 0 Jackie Young
G – 12 Chelsea Gray

Aces Injury Report:

Angel McCoughtry—Out, right ACL
Liz Cambage – Out, Australian Nation Team