Kelsey Plum brings the Dawg to victory in Game 2 after A’ja Wilson tells her to “get her shit together”.

LAS VEGAS – Kelsey Plum wasn’t herself, and A’ja Wilson could feel it. So the two-time MVP used her developing leadership skills and proceeded in ways she knew would be most effective.

“I told her she had to pull herself together,” Wilson said after she, Plum and Chelsea Gray combined for a 67-pointer and torched the Connecticut Sun 85-71 in Game 2 at Michelob Ultra Arena on Tuesday night.

Wilson and Gray have dominated the entire postseason and series. Plum less, especially with a narrow win in Game 1. Wilson knew her direction sounded tough, but it also seemed to work in what she called “statement play,” which got people on the 5-foot-9 – Guard alerted. Plum notched 20 points on a straight 7-of-13 night with seven assists, one by Gray’s team-high, three rebounds and a steal.

“Today I saw KP, and I even realized in myself that I haven’t talked to KP lately,” Wilson said. “So that made me say what I said.”

Plum didn’t hit a shot until 4:30 in Game 1, ending the game with just six points while going 1-of-9 and 1-of-7 overall from 3-point range. Her postseason clip is down from the regular season and she’s had ups and downs in different lines. The glaring contrast is that her 3-point shot was largely missed (26.1%) after she was money (42%) in the regular season.

“A lot of times I’m hard on myself and I feel like I’m a little frustrated [with] how I did throughout the playoffs,” Plum said. “I’m glad they wore it and I decided to join the party.”

The Ace Juggernaut travels east to Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut for Game 3 Thursday night. Another win will secure the franchise’s first championship and the city of Las Vegas’ first title, defeating the NHL’s Golden Knights and the NFL’s Raiders, also owned by Mark Davis.

Plum’s ability to attack the basket helped lead the Aces to a crucial 45-37 halftime lead and she continued to pin it to keep the Sun from making late pushes. She was 4-of-6 for 13 points in the first half, an efficiency trailing only Wilson’s 7-of-9 for 18.

The story goes on

“You have to respect their three-ball,” said Aces head coach Becky Hammon. “Right there you can attack closeouts every time because you don’t want to just let them shoot threes. Even though she’s strayed a bit from this series, just her threat, you don’t want to let her roll from there.”

She was 1 of 6 from 3-point range in Game 2, but those completed drives mattered more. And they were dirty. By the end of the game, she had a playoff high of 12 points in paint while the Aces crushed the Sun 46-28 in their paint point specialty.

“There were some slips and other things, but for the most part it wasn’t the jump,” Sun head coach Curt Miller said. “And often, not every time, but often it was just one on one. And Kelsey led the charge there [and] was just relentless in color.”

The ability of multiple aces to go head-to-head with high win rates was highlighted by the recently retired Sue Bird earlier in the day on ESPN Daily. With the barking of “Plum Dawg,” it gave the Sun’s defense too much too much to deal with corrals Plum, Gray, and Wilson.

“You know, shooters shoot. Just stay aggressive,” Plum said. “I do not think so [there’s] everything I absolutely did differently, you know, just my same routines. i eat the same I go to bed at the same time. Sometimes shots come, sometimes not, and I feel like it was an opportunity for growth in how I can influence the game in ways other than kicking the ball.”

Plum wasn’t as successful in the points column in the playoffs, but she’s recovering more (from 2.7 RPG to 4.1) and dishing out key assists. They had seven each in Game 3 of the semifinals against the Seattle Storm, a game that proved to be a turning point. The only time she came close to that line was in the season opener. She also helps take out the Sun Sentinels.

“There were things that she was still doing that kept her grounded, and I think that’s the growth as well, not just her being back and hitting punches,” Gray said. “She’s just what we needed her to be. We need them out there on the ground.”

Part of having them out there is the threat. Because teams know their shot “is going to come back,” Gray said. She only had that one 3-pointer in Game 1, but it turned a one-point lead into a four-point lead that the Sun couldn’t make up for.

Plum’s story was one of growth and recovery. She left Washington as the all-time NCAA pick and was drafted #1 in the 2017 WNBA draft by the San Antonio Stars, who moved to the Aces. She wasn’t the superstar everyone wanted to be to begin with, and earlier this season she spoke publicly about coping with depression and anxiety for the first time. In 2020 she tore her Achilles tendon and missed the season. And if the Tokyo 2020 Olympics hadn’t been postponed by a year, she would have missed her run to a 3×3 gold medal.

“I feel like over the past few years I’ve dropped my head and just gone deeper into a hole,” Plum said. “But through a lot of things that I’ve been through over the years, it’s taught me that I’ll always fight back and I know that about myself and I’ll just keep shooting.”

She is enjoying a sixth season as Player of the Year and moved into the starting lineup in Hammon’s debut season averaging 20.2 points per game, behind only Breanna Stewart (21.8). She had redemption in Chicago after a “Brick” All-Star 3-point contest to tie Maya Moore for the game’s points record. And her bounce-back “statement” game in what may be the last Las Vegas competition of 2022 could be the show’s deciding factor.

“The growth you’re seeing at KP is incredible,” Wilson said. “The history she has, it’s crazy to think about. She is such a strong willed person who will not stop until the job is done. I’m so glad she’s in our dressing room because she’d be a pain in the ass if she wasn’t.”