WNBA’s Kelsey Plum is yelled at by coach Becky Hammon during a timeout
Becky Hammon and Kelsey Plum.
Thanks to Becky Hammon/Instagram; Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty ImagesLas Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum faced a scolding from her head coach Becky Hammon during the team’s second consecutive loss to the New York Liberty.
In a video circulating on social media, Hammon, 47, pointed directly at Plum, 30, and pointed her finger in Plum’s face during a heated timeout in Game 2 of their second-round matchup against the Liberty on Tuesday, October 1. The Aces lost 88 -84, falling into a 2-0 hole in their best-of-five series.
Plum finished 2-for-9 from the floor, with just six points in 27 minutes of play for the two-time defending WNBA champions.
While it’s not clear what Hammon yelled at Plum on the bench, she made it abundantly clear how she felt about her team’s effort after the game.
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“Honestly, we haven’t had the edge all year,” Hammon told reporters. “We’ve found it in the last month, I feel like we’ve gained a lot of ground. But the feeling was different than the jump and that’s why three-peat is difficult, let’s be real.”
No team has won three consecutive WNBA championships since the Houston Comets in 1999. Led by Cynthia Cooperthe Comets won the title in the first four years of the league’s existence, from 1997 to 2000.
In her post-match comments, Hammon criticized her players for diverting their time and attention from off-field pursuits since winning their title last season.
Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces will take on Shatori Walker-Kimbrough of the Washington Mystics on June 1, 2018.
ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA“The whole league has been pissed off for the last eight months and my players are in commercials and this and that and are crazy celebrities,” Hammon argued. “You get distracted. That’s why it’s difficult, because human nature is distracting.”
Hammon also lamented her team’s tendency to turn the ball over in Game 2. Plum committed three turnovers, which tied a team high.
“I don’t even think it’s close if we stop passing it off to the other team and hand it off,” Hammon said. “They had twenty points less than our turnover at halftime. The number of layups we gave up was obscene. It looked like a lay-up clinic. That stuff is on us.”
The interaction with her head coach was Plum’s second controversial incident in as many games.
During Game 1 of the series on Sunday, September 29, Plum got into a verbal back-and-forth with Spike Leewho was sitting courtside at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Plum’s interaction with the famed director and New York sports diehard went viral, but Plum played the whole thing out after the game.
“I can’t say exactly what was said, but I told him to talk louder,” Plum said. “But it was all good and fun and really cool that he’s here. Even the last lap it was really cool that he was here.”
She continued, “I know he’s a big sports fan, so it says a lot that he’s in the building and he respects the game. So yeah, I just had fun.”
The series between the Aces and Liberty moves to Las Vegas for Game 3 on Friday, October 4.
