SEATTLE–- With the season on the line, rookie Dominique Malonga gave the Seattle Storm the ninth and final lead change of Game 2 with an old-fashioned three-point play that put her team up 84-83 over the Las Vegas Aces with 31 seconds remaining. Veteran guard Skylar Diggins extended the lead to 86-83 with a 19-foot pull-up jump shot over Aces guard Jackie Young with 4.2 seconds left in regulation to practically ice the game.

One missed Jewell Loyd three-point attempt later, the Storm lived to play another game.

“When I have that mindset, nobody can stay in front of me,” Diggins, who finished the game with 26 points and seven rebounds, said about her cold-blooded mentality.

In the first game of the best-of-three first-round series, the No. 2 Aces crushed the No. 7 Storm 102-77. Even though Seattle had home-court advantage in Game 2, it looked for much of the game like the Aces would sweep the series and continue their 17-game winning streak.

Las Vegas led by as many as 14 points in the first 20 minutes and outscored Seattle 24-17 in the third frame. But everything changed in the fourth quarter, when the Storm outscored the Aces 25-14, including a 16-4 run to end the game.

“Our defense let us down,” Vegas head coach Becky Hammon told the media postgame. “Beside the third quarter … I thought our defense was a step behind.”

Seattle head coach Noelle Quinn kept her rotations tight, opting to only utilize Malonga and veteran guard Erica Wheeler off the bench. At the close of the third, the Las Vegas bench had the edge 15-8 over Seattle, and all eight Storm bench points were from Malonga. But Wheeler came alive in the fourth, fueling the Storm’s surge with 11 points, including a 3-pointer late in the game to get her team within three.

Malonga, a 19-year-old rookie out of France, ended the night 4 of 7 for 11 points and 10 rebounds; her go-ahead bucket in the final minute wowed everyone in Climate Pledge Arena.

“She’s long, she’s athletic .. we could have been more efficient with her for sure,” Hammon said.

“There is an evolution in every single game,” Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike said of Malonga. “She’s just learning and improving that much, and we just try our best to continue to empower her to know how truly capable she is.”

The heroics from Malonga, Wheeler, and Diggins were also a result of a focused and determined Storm team. “Tonight, we came to the game,” Diggins said postgame. “We won the rebounding game, that was a big deal for us.”

Inconsistency has plagued Seattle, but the Storm battled back through their defense, forcing Vegas into 15 turnovers for 18 points. Seattle also outscored the Aces 16-4 on the fast break.

“Today was one of the best showings of composure,” Nneka Ogwumike said. Seattle took care of the ball and held the Aces star A’ja Wilson scoreless in the last seven minutes of the game.

Including Game 2, the Storm and Aces have equally split their six games in 2025. The winner of Game 3, which takes place in Vegas on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. ET, will face the series winner between the No. 3 Atlanta Dream and No. 6 Indiana Fever, also pushed to a Game 3 on Tuesday night.