The WNBA is back in action. Just a week after 12 of the best players from the U.S. won the gold medal in the Olympics, it’s time to switch gears and face old rivals again.
With a little over a month remaining in the season, all the players from the national team who won the gold by defeating France 67-66 have returned to their teams, and the race for playoff spots is underway.
Olympic MVP A’ja Wilson commented on the transition, saying, “I think that’s the beautiful thing about our league, is we kind of flip that switch in those moments. We all know what we want to go after now. We checked off the box of the gold medal, now it’s really time to go.”
Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces, who are the defending champions, played their first game after the Olympics on Saturday against the New York Liberty and reigning league MVP Breanna Stewart.
In that game, Sabrina Ionescu scored 23 points, Jonquel Jones had a double-double with 10 points and 17 rebounds, and the Liberty secured a playoff spot with a 79-67 win over the Aces. This matchup was highly anticipated and is thought by many to be a preview of the WNBA Finals.
The Liberty (23-4), who lost to the Aces (16-9) in the Finals last year, are now leading the league and have a three-game lead over the Connecticut Sun for the top spot.
The Sun began their post-Olympic play with a 109-91 victory over the Dallas Wings on Friday, with DeWanna Bonner scoring 29 points and Alyssa Thomas recording a double-double with 12 points and 14 assists.
Thomas, who went to the Olympics for the first time, said that switching from teammates to opponents is something players are used to. “As athletes in general, we’re used to playing on different teams, whether it’s overseas or Olympic teams.
I just think we all have a lot of experience with adjusting and playing with different people. I think that’s one advantage that we have. It’s no different than going overseas and playing with a completely different group of players.”
Minnesota star Napheesa Collier, who is a top MVP contender and has helped the Lynx start the season with two wins since it resumed on Thursday, said there was a lot of playful trash talking among players during their time in Paris.
They talked about “little scuffles people got in, or talking about plays people made … we were talking about Kah (Kahleh Cooper) shooting over us for that freaking (buzzer-beating) shot in Phoenix.”
Collier explained, “I think when you get that many competitive people together, you can’t help but have trash talking. It’s all really good-natured. We play overseas together, there are trades.
The league is so small you get really comfortable with everyone. We’re competitive and everyone wants to win and so it’s fun to talk about that and it’s fun to come together and then go back to our other teams and get right back into it.”
For Sabrina Ionescu, it was her first Olympics. As the youngest member of the national team, she enjoyed building relationships and bonds with players she usually competes against for five months each year.
Ionescu said, “I think we all got really close. We were together for a month, and I think just to be able to talk about playing one another, funny things that have happened throughout the year.
I think it’s just getting to know a lot of the other players, a lot of the other players’ families in that amount of time, kind of build friendships. Understanding we go up against each other every night, but for that month we were all on the same team and it was really cool to kind of just see that camaraderie kind of build.”
However, the friendly atmosphere was set aside on Saturday as the teams quickly shifted back to their rivalries. Public address announcer Chet Buchanan recognized the eight Olympians: Ionescu and Stewart from New York, and Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young, Megan Gustafson (Spain), and Tiffany Hayes (Azerbaijan) from Las Vegas.
