The Dallas Wings (8-5) continue a rough scheduling stretch on Monday when the Las Vegas Aces (10-3) come to town for the second time. Tipoff at College Park Center is scheduled for 7 p.m. The Wings will be playing their fourth of five games in nine days on Monday, and this one comes against the defending WNBA Champions, who will be looking for some get-back against the upstart Dallas team that beat them 95-87 on May 28.
The Wings are coming off an ugly loss at the Portland Fire on Saturday, 84-83,
while the Aces have rattled off six wins in a row since losing at Dallas. Paige Bueckers did not play at Portland after turning her ankle while battling for a defensive rebound in the second half of the Wings’ previous game, an 85-70 win over the Phoenix Mercury.
“The best thing for her longevity, her career and the franchise is making sure we take care of her,” Wings head coach Jose Fernandez said in his pregame comments before the loss at Portland, which made it seem like Bueckers was ultimately held out for equal parts precaution and load management. Without Bueckers in the lineup, the Wings’ offense sputtered early on at the Fire, and some late mistakes kept Dallas from completing the comeback.
Will Bueckers play?
This is purely speculation, but if we are reading the tea leaves of how the Wings’ coaching staff has handled the stretch of five games in nine days, the ankle injury gave Fernandez and his staff a plausible premise on which to hold Bueckers out at Portland — to get her some rest in a game the team probably felt like they could win without their best player, while also shielding her from aggravating the ankle. It didn’t go that way, unfortunately for the Wings, because the backcourt of Arike Ogunbowale and Aziaha James started the game dreadfully slowly, while Bridget Carleton made 6-of-10 of her 3-point attempts to lead an uncharacteristically hot Fire offense to the win.
Whatever the calculus there, what’s done is done. Sitting out at Portland would also give Bueckers a couple of extra days off before the Wings host one of the best teams in the W — a game where Dallas will need every bullet in the clip to pull out the win. Our inclination is that you will indeed see Bueckers suit up and start against the Aces, though you’ll likely not be given any indication until 30 minutes or so before tipoff on Monday.
Wings roster moves
The Wings made two other roster moves in the backcourt on Sunday, waiving seldom-used backup point guard JJ Quinerly and replacing her on the roster with Sug Sutton, a four-year WNBA veteran with a couple seasons of international play mixed in there as well. She played in three games with the Fire this season before being waived on May 21. In those three games, though, Sutton averaged 11.3 points and 5.7 assists per game.
Quinerly was a third-round draft pick by the Wings last year who had an exciting stretch last July, when she scored 15 or more points in six straight games as injuries began to take their toll on the Dallas roster. She proved last year that her size doesn’t limit her offensive potential.
Sutton is also a smaller guard, also listed at 5’8”, but is known as more of a lockdown defender.
“[Sutton] plays with great pace and adds a quality defender on the perimeter,” Wings general manager Curt Miller said in a team news release. “We’re happy to welcome Sug back to the state of Texas.”
Sutton played her college ball for the University of Texas from 2016-2020. She started all 43 games she appeared in last season for the Washington Mystics. This should be viewed as an upgrade meant to address the absence of Odyssey Sims, who has sat out the last two games with a left ankle injury.
Last time out
The Wings pulled out one of the most eye-opening upsets of the early part of the 2026 WNBA season when they got the better of the Aces on may 28 at College Park Center. It’s hard to overstate how important Jessica Shepard was in that win, on both sides of the court.
Shepard was a big part of limiting A’ja Wilson to 6-of-17 shooting from the field in the second half. There aren’t many nights that Wilson is going to shoot 10-of-24 from the field. Scoring 21 points and grabbing seven rebounds might seem like a huge night for any other player, but holding her to those numbers in the first matchup was a big win for Dallas.
Shepard absolutely crammed the box score full in the win, scoring 22 points, grabbing 20 rebounds and dishing 10 assists. It was the biggest, stat-stuffingest triple-double the W has ever seen. Bueckers scored 20 in the win, and Azzi Fudd put up 22 in the first start of her career, so it’s safe to say a lot of things went right for Dallas that night. It was a confluence of several key factors that the Wings won’t necessarily be able to command every time out.
And on top of that, the Aces have turned things around over the last two weeks, after suffering back-to-back losses against the Wings and the Los Angeles Sparks. Wilson has been on a tear in Vegas’ last six wins, averaging 28.5 points and 11.8 rebounds per game in that stretch.
Wilson is the reigning MVP. The Aces are the reigning national champs. To beat them a second time to open the season is going to be a steep hill to climb.
