LAS VEGAS — The Sky (6-14) keep finding new ways to torture themselves.
This time, they fought back from down 9 in the fourth quarter, held a lead down the stretch, then dropped a 98-90 overtime decision to the Aces on Friday at T-Mobile Arena.
It wasn’t pretty on either side. The Aces were missing four-time MVP A’ja Wilson, out a second straight game with a right ankle injury, and the Sky looked out of sorts early, having not played since Sunday.
But they hung around long enough to build momentum at the right time, clamping down defensively in the fourth quarter and getting huge buckets from their cadre of guards: Skylar Diggins, Sydney Taylor and Natasha Cloud.
The Aces (15-5), meanwhile, were misfiring — spoiling easy looks, coughing up the ball. It was the closest they’ll ever come to handing someone a game. The Sky didn’t take it.
“We had our moments where we felt like we could have put the game away, and we didn’t,” Sky coach Tyler Marsh said.
Up 2 with under a minute to play, Sky point guard Courtney Vandersloot turned the ball over, and Aces point guard Chelsea Gray tied it on the other end with a pull-up jumper. The Sky still had a chance with 20 seconds left, but a 3-pointer by Cloud — who finished with 15 points and five assists — didn’t fall.
“We had a chance to win,” Vandersloot said. “There were plays in our control that didn’t go our way, and we learned from it and move on. We’re gonna find ways to win games.”
Vandersloot, in just her third game back from injury, hit her minutes restriction and was unavailable for the overtime period. That hurt them.
The Aces outscored the Sky 12-4 in OT. Still, the Sky appeared to cut the deficit to two with under two minutes left on a driving and-one by Cloud, but the Aces challenged, and officials overturned it as an offensive foul.
“There was a huge swing with that call,” Diggins said.
Then Gray, the Aces’ closer, put it away.
This one stings for the Sky. It was an opportunity to steal a win with Wilson on the bench. Instead they let another one slip away.