Becky Hammon Opens With ‘I Was Wrong’ Before Liberty Rematch. Sarcasm or Genuine?

The Las Vegas Aces are on a roll right now. They’ve won eight of their last nine games, and Tuesday night they host the New York Liberty at Michelob ULTRA Arena. But before tip-off, Aces coach Becky Hammon stepped to the mic and said something nobody expected.

“I was wrong. My opinion was wrong,” Hammon told reporters, according to The Athletic’s Annie Costabile.

You have to understand the history here. These two teams absolutely despise each other. The Aces beat the Liberty in the 2023 WNBA Finals, and the Liberty returned the favor last season by knocking Las Vegas out in the semifinals. Hammon, who played for the Liberty during her career, already stirred up bad blood in 2023 when she took a shot at Breanna Stewart during the Aces’ championship parade.

Then last year, she made it worse. Hammon said Jalen Brunson was too small to lead the Knicks to a title and called him not a “1A dude.” New York fans lost it. Brunson went out and led the Knicks to the Eastern Conference semifinals, earning Finals MVP along the way. It was one of those takes that aged terribly in real time.

So when Hammon opened her pregame presser by admitting she was wrong, the natural question was: Is she serious or just messing with everyone?

It’s impossible to tell with her. Hammon has a dry sense of humor and isn’t afraid to needle an opponent. But she’s also not stupid. She knows that every time she faces New York, the Brunson comments come up. Maybe she’s just tired of answering the same question.

She did give Brunson his flowers eventually, calling him an “outlier” and putting him in the same conversation as Steph Curry and Isiah Thomas.

“You can put his name next to Steph Curry and Isiah Thomas, and I thought he played brilliantly, especially down the stretch. I mean, he was that 1A dude,” Hammon said.

But she still won’t apologize for the original comment. She made that clear. So Tuesday’s opener felt like a strategic move more than a full walk-back. Maybe it’s a way to disarm the Liberty before the game. Or maybe she just got tired of the noise.

Either way, it worked. The story shifted from Brunson to Hammon’s unpredictability. And now the Aces have a chance to make it nine wins in ten games against a Liberty team that has lost two straight. New York dropped games to the Sparks and the Mystics, which nobody saw coming. The Liberty sit at 11-6, still one of the best teams in the league, but they’re not playing like it right now.

This rivalry doesn’t need extra fuel. But Hammon just handed them some anyway.