This is a rematch of the 2025 WNBA Finals, and our model doesn’t think it’ll play like one. The Aces sit fifth on our Elo board at 1588, 16-8 and winners of their last game. The Mercury sit tenth at 1405, 9-15, losers of two straight. That’s a 183-point Elo gap between two teams that shared a Finals floor last fall — one of the fastest separations between recent Finals opponents you’ll find anywhere in the league.
Add the headline: A’ja Wilson is back. The four-time MVP missed three games with a right ankle injury, returned Thursday against Portland, and dropped 32 points and 10 rebounds — her 130th career double-double — in an 88-80 win, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Two days later, Phoenix walks into Mandalay Bay.
What The Call sees
The Call has the Aces at 82%, one of the strongest numbers our model prints for any game, any league. The inputs are lopsided: the 183-point Elo gap, Las Vegas at 6-4 over its last ten against Phoenix’s 4-6, and a home floor where the Aces have already beaten this exact opponent this season — 86-76 on June 17, with Wilson scoring 33, in the game that clinched Las Vegas’s Commissioner’s Cup final berth, per ESPN.
Both teams come in on equal rest, so there’s no schedule edge to muddy it. This is a pure talent-gap call.
What could break the pick
Availability, mostly on the wrong side. Phoenix’s injury report is the problem: Natasha Mack is out, and Sami Whitcomb — who logged just 11 minutes in her season debut Thursday — is day-to-day and a candidate for injury-management rest again Saturday. A shorthanded 9-15 team walking into Wilson’s building is how 82% happens.
The Vegas side has one storyline worth watching: guard Dana Evans, out since April with a left leg injury that’s kept her from making her season debut, per ESPN, has been trending toward a return. If she debuts Saturday, it’s a depth boost, not a risk — which tells you how one-sided the report reads.
The honest case for Phoenix: 18% isn’t 0%, Finals DNA is real, and a road underdog with nothing to lose against a team reintegrating its MVP is the classic live-dog setup. It’s just a thin thread.
If you’re making the trip
An Aces game doubles as a Vegas weekend — Michelob Ultra Arena is inside Mandalay Bay, so you can sleep, eat, and watch basketball without stepping outside. Our Michelob Ultra Arena guide has the play on where to book along the south Strip.
