Becky Hammon questions ‘brutal’ schedule before Aces-Liberty game

Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon questioned the team’s quick turnaround before Sunday’s game against the New York Liberty, with A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young all sitting out for rest.

The Aces played the second half of a back-to-back less than a day after losing at Minnesota on Saturday. Las Vegas then traveled nearly 1,200 miles to New York and did not arrive at its hotel until close to 10 p.m.

“I mean, everybody has a brutal schedule at some point. I don’t even think they do this in the NBA, though, where it’s less than 24 hours,” Hammon said, as reported by Doug Feinberg of The Associated Press. “You can check, but I’m pretty sure that’s not even legal on the NBA side, you’d have to look up. But I don’t recall. With the time change, it ends up being that.”

According to a person familiar with scheduling who spoke to The Associated Press, the NBA and WNBA do not schedule teams to travel two time zones or play games less than 22 hours apart on consecutive days.

Sunday’s game tipped off at 12:30 p.m. EDT on ABC, meaning the Aces arrived at the arena less than 12 hours after reaching their hotel. Hammon said protecting her players took precedence under those circumstances.

“We’re going to always be on the side of health and safety for our players,” Hammon said. “I’m not going to put them in any kind of jeopardy to get hurt when we’ve been expending a lot of energy on travel and a lot of miles back and forth crisscrossing the country.”

The matchup concluded a five-game Aces road trip that began in Chicago and also included stops in Atlanta, Indiana and Minnesota. Las Vegas’ game at Indiana went to overtime before the Aces won behind Gray’s buzzer-beating 3-pointers at the end of regulation and overtime.

Las Vegas lost 111-71 to New York.

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