Las Vegas Aces vs Seattle Storm - WNBA Game 41 - 2026

Jackie Young’s 22-Point First Quarter Ties a WNBA Record as Aces Bury Seattle 114-77

The Las Vegas Aces came out of the World Cup break and beat the breaks off the Seattle Storm on their own floor 114-77 on Thursday night. Jackie Young was the whole story for the first 10 minutes and most of the rest of them too, dropping a career-high 35 points and tying a WNBA record with 22 in the opening quarter. A’ja Wilson was every bit as ruthless with 29, and the Aces got 10 apiece from Kalani Brown, who suited up for Las Vegas for the first time, and Dana Evans. The ball moved like Gregory Hines: 29 assists, with Chelsea Gray handing out 6 and Steph Talbot, Wilson and Young dishing 5 each, only the sixth time in franchise history four players have reached that number. Flau’jae Johnson led Seattle with 25 as one of four Storm players in double figures, but the home squad never led and never really threatened. Las Vegas improved to 28-13, Seattle fell to 8-33, and the two-and-a-half-week layoff turned out to be exactly nothing to worry about.

Game Summary: Las Vegas Aces vs Seattle Storm

First Quarter

Steph Talbot opened the scoring with a three, and that was the last time the game was even. Las Vegas led the rest of the night. Young buried the next triple, Seattle scratched back to within a point at 6-5, and with four and a half minutes left the Storm were still hanging around down 11-9. Then Young decided to go Kobe.

A personal 7-2 run stretched it to 18-11. Seattle trimmed it back to five, and Young answered by scoring every single one of the Aces’ final seven points of the period. When the horn sounded she had 22, a number that tied the WNBA record for points in a single quarter and erased her own career best of 21. She got there on 8-of-9 shooting overall and 3-of-4 from deep. Jackie was “hot as fish grease” as my granny used to say.

The team numbers followed her lead. Las Vegas shot 52.9 percent and hit 4 of 8 from three. Seattle opened the game by missing their first seven attempts and never recovered, finishing the quarter at 21.1 percent (4-of-19) and getting shut out from beyond the arc at 0-for-5. No Storm player scored more than five. The Aces walked away with a 25-13 lead and cigars on ice, cigars on ice!

Second Quarter

Seattle made its one real push early in the second, cutting the deficit to eight at 28-20 and briefly giving their building something to hold onto. Wilson ended that in about a minute. Four straight free throws from the reigning MVP launched a 10-2 run, and the margin never dipped back into single digits for the rest of the night.

From there Wilson got on the grill, piling up 13 in the period and picking Seattle apart from the line and inside it. Barbecue chicken. Las Vegas hit 50 percent from the floor again, though the three-ball went quiet at 1-of-5. The Storm actually shot it better in the quarter, connecting on 47.1 percent and going 2-of-5 from range with Dominique Malonga leading them with seven, but the damage from the opening 10 minutes was already too deep to dig out of.

Las Vegas took a 52-34 lead into the locker room, an 18-point cushion built on one historic quarter and one stretch of MVP-caliber bully ball.

Third Quarter

The third quarter was the most entertaining stretch of basketball in the game, mostly because both teams were scoring at will and neither was guarding anybody. Las Vegas held its lead in a tidy band between 18 and 25 points the entire way, never letting Seattle close and never quite putting it fully to bed either.

The Aces kept humming at 57.1 percent from the field with 3 of 8 from deep. Seattle, to its credit, had its best shooting quarter of the night, hitting 56.2 percent and 4 of 8 from three behind a 13-point burst from Johnson. It just did not move the needle, because Wilson and Young answered with 11 apiece of their own.

Las Vegas carried an 85-63 lead into the fourth, already past 85 points with a full quarter still to play.

Fourth Quarter

The fourth is where the Aces stopped being efficient and went #ALLIN. Las Vegas shot 73.3 percent in the quarter, including 5 of 7 from three, while the defense clamped Seattle down to 31.6 percent and 2-of-9 from distance. That is how a 22-point lead becomes a 37-point final.

The bench did most of it. Kalani Brown, in her first appearance in an Aces uniform, scored 10 on a perfect 4-of-4 from the field, and Dana Evans added nine on 3-of-3 from behind the arc, which is about as good an audition as either could have drawn up. Johnson kept working for Seattle with seven in the quarter, but by then the reserves were closing it out on both ends.

The Aces finished it 114-77, their 12th 100-point game of the season and the kind of night where the only real drama left was whether the record book would need updating. It did.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that Las Vegas came off a two-and-a-half-week break and produced one of its most complete nights of the season. The Aces shot 58.0 percent from the floor and 46.4 percent from three, the latter tying for their third-highest mark of the year, and the 37-point margin is their second largest of the season behind the 48-point win over Phoenix on July 11.

Young’s night was the headline and deserves to be. Her 35 points broke a career high of 34 that she had matched twice, most recently against Los Angeles on June 11, 2025. Her 22 in the first quarter eclipsed her previous career quarter high of 21, set in the second quarter at Phoenix on June 13, 2024. It was her 22nd 20-point game of the season and the 79th of her career, plus her second 30-point game of the year and the seventh of her career.

Wilson kept climbing too. She entered with 962 points on the season and left with 991, just nine shy of a second 1,000-point campaign. That total ranks third on the all-time single-season list, behind only her own 1,021 from 2024 and Kelsey Mitchell‘s 1,001 scored this season. She has now scored in double figures in a league-leading 62 consecutive games.

Cheyenne Parker-Tyus needed one rebound to reach a milestone and grabbed seven, becoming the 31st player in WNBA history with 2,600 career points, 1,500 rebounds and 250 blocks. And the franchise added a mark of its own: the 63rd 100-point game in Aces history, second all-time behind Phoenix’s 68, and the 12th this season, the most any Aces team has ever managed and past the 11 put up by the 2023 group.

TOP PERFORMERS

TEAM STATS

Points in the Paint: LVA 46, SEA 34 | Second Chance: LVA 11, SEA 6 | Fast Break: LVA 17, SEA 12 | Off Turnovers: LVA 20, SEA 14 | Bench: LVA 37, SEA 21

Next up: The Aces and Storm meet for the third and final time this season on Sunday, Sept. 20. Tip from Michelob ULTRA Arena is set for 6 p.m. and the game can be seen on USA, The Spot-Vegas 34 and on Aces Live via the Aces app.

Franchise Sports Media. Las Vegas sports news about Las Vegas Sports teams.

— TQ (@tqthetrojan) for Franchise Sports Media

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