A’ja Wilson’s matchup with former Las Vegas teammate Kiah Stokes gives Golden State a specific test for its league-leading defense in Sunday’s WNBA semifinal opener.
Wilson averaged 25 points and 12.7 rebounds in the teams’ three regular-season meetings, according to Golden State’s official series preview, which identifies Stokes as her primary defender. Las Vegas won all three games.
Golden State allowed a league-low 99.1 points per 100 possessions over the regular season, according to the WNBA’s end-of-season defensive review. The same review reports 94.5 points allowed per 100 possessions with Stokes on the court, compared with 100.1 when she was off it.
Those figures describe a strong defensive foundation. Wilson presents a scoring threat both near the basket and beyond the arc: she led the league at 26.2 points per game and made 40.4% of her three-point attempts, taking 2.3 a game. The scoring average is documented by the WNBA; the shooting figures appear in Golden State’s preview.
Stokes brings experience playing alongside Wilson. She was part of Las Vegas’s 2022, 2023 and 2025 championship teams. Official WNBA coverage lists both players in the Aces’ starting five during the 2022 playoffs, and Stokes’s team biography records 22 regular-season starts in 2023.
