Liberty sleepwalk through 34-point loss to Aces

Thousands of kids sat with their groups around the lower bowl inside Barclays Center. They happily banged their white Thunderstix and chanted “Dee-fense.” But the defense wasn’t there from the Liberty on Camp Day.

The Las Vegas Aces also had some incredibly hot hands in the deck for Thursday’s 11 a.m. game.

The Liberty had posted the greatest scoring half in WNBA history with 73 after the intermission Tuesday night here against Las Vegas and still fell by six because they trailed by 24 at the break.

The Aces dropped them into a 24-point hole again in this rematch — after one quarter. They almost broke the Liberty’s record, scoring 71 in the first half on the way to a 108-74 win.

“That was an absolutely [expletive] game, and I had to sit through it, unfortunately,” Sandy Brondello, the Liberty’s straight-shooting coach, said after their third consecutive loss. “Sometimes you feel helpless. You’re like, ‘I don’t know. Can we stop at halftime?’ ”

The crowd of 9,896 saw Chelsea Gray and Dearica Hamby begin the game by nailing threes. Gray followed with an 18-footer. Three shots, three makes. It was 8-0, and Brondello called for time.

But Las Vegas (17-7), which scored 107 in Tuesday’s game, made it 12-0 and ultimately hit its first 10 shots to take a 24-9 advantage. By the end of the quarter, it was 37-13. The Liberty (9-15) were 6-for-18. The Aces were 14-for-18, including 7-for-8 on threes.

“When we share it, we're very dangerous, especially when we're getting stops and able to play out of our defense,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said.

By halftime, it was 71-36. The Aces were at 75% from three and 74.3% overall — 26-for-35.

A’ja Wilson shot 9-for-11 in the half and scored 20 of her game-high 25 points. Kelsey Plum owned 17 of her 21 and Gray had all of her 16. Both Plum and Gray had hit all of their four threes.

Las Vegas finished 16-for-33 from beyond the arc. The margin hit 39 in the fourth.

“They were hot,” Brondello said. “… But we had no resistance, and that’s where I was most disappointed.”

Natasha Howard contributed 19 points and nine rebounds for the Liberty, and Michaela Onyenwere scored a season-high 14.

“The only two players that competed,” said Brondello, who didn’t rule out lineup changes.

Sami Whitcomb said changes to the players’ routines “are definitely something we need to look at” since two more morning games are up next on the road.

“We just looked like we lacked energy,” Onyenwere said. “We’ll learn from this.”