Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces defended their home turf as they defeated the New York Libertyās Sabrina Ionescu and Courtney Vandersloot in the WNBA All-Star Skills Challenge in Las Vegas.
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Chelsea Gray & Kelsey Plum win the Skills Challenge at WNBA All-Star š pic.twitter.com/cbyVA6249p
Ionescu and Vandersloot both struggled mightily on the mid-range and three-point shooting portions of the course. As a result, they had to settle for a final time of 58 seconds.
That set the stage for Plum and Gray. While Plum had similar problems finding her shooting stroke, Gray had no such issues as she was a perfect 3-for-3 on her jumpers.
espnW @espnW
Mood pic.twitter.com/TYbtPN0lum
Somewhere between COZY and ALIEN SUPERSTAR! @yanab0015
CHELSEA GRAY IS CLUTCH!
Drea Blackwell @KSBWDrea
CHELSEA. GRAY. pic.twitter.com/iQ69xbRXqE
chelsea leite @chelsealeite
Chelsea Gray won that, no offence to Kelsey ššš #WNBAAllstar
The 2022 WNBA Finals MVP certainly burnished her clutch reputation Friday.
This yearās Skills Challenge offered a new spin on the annual event as it featured four sets of teammates rather than pitting eight players against one another.
The Atlanta Dreamās Allisha Gray and Cheyenne Parker both earned their first All-Star nods this season. Their inexperience might have cost them as they didnāt display a ton of urgency while winding through the course. Their time of 58.7 seconds was the worst in the first round.
Arike Ogunbowale and Satou Sabally completed the course in 52.6 seconds. Like Gray and Parker, their lack of urgency added time they couldnāt afford to the clock.
The respective squads for the Liberty and Aces lived up to the hype.
New York boasted the active all-time leader in assists (Vandersloot) and the reigning Skills Challenge champion (Ionescu). Las Vegas called upon arguably the most explosive backcourt pairing in the league with Gray and Plum. A head-to-head battle between the two was what fans hoped to see.
Both teams came in with times under 50 seconds in the first round.
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CHELSEA GRAY IS CLUTCHā¼ļø
Team Aces will face Team Liberty in the Skills Challenge Finals ā¦ļø#WNBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/dWxvTzUdNE
It was also a fitting final considering the Liberty assembled a superteam this offseason to mount the strongest challenge to the 2022 WNBA champion Aces.
Alexa Philippou @alexaphilippou
Team Liberty vs. Team Aces in the final (prescient, maybe?) of the Skills Challenge
Eden Laase-Derouin @eden_laase
The skills challenge providing fuel to the rivalry fire: Liberty vs. Aces for the final round.
Sabrina Ionescu and Courtney Vandersloot vs. Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum.
Maggie Hendricks @maggiehendricks
Kiiiinda hard to play down the superteam talk when the Aces and Liberty start off the ASG Weekend by going to the finals of the Skills Challenge.
Considering the Aces are off to a blistering 19-2 start and well ahead of the second-place Liberty in the standings, this may not be the last time New York is finishing runner-up to Las Vegas.
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