The Las Vegas Aces won’t go down easily.

After becoming the first consecutive defending WNBA champions to fall behind 2-0, the host Aces responded with a 95-81 Game 3 win over the New York Liberty. Game 4 is scheduled for Sunday in Vegas at 3 p.m. ET.

All it took was a 17-2 run to end the third quarter and wow the sellout crowd at Michelob Ultra Arena. After a close first half in which neither team built a lead of more than four points, the Aces went hard on defense for ten minutes. At the end of the frame, the Liberty had scored a total of six points and committed five turnovers.

It was the lowest-scoring quarter for an opponent in Aces playoff history. New York’s starters were out of the game midway through the fourth quarter, but the Aces’ stars stayed in the game a little longer. They were eliminated by a margin of 90-68, the message was sent.

Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum led the Aces’ offense with a combined 44 points, six assists and just two turnovers, while A’ja Wilson continued to look like the MVP with 19 points and 14 rebounds.

After suffering an injury in Games 1 and 2, Vegas did everything she could to stop Sabrina Ionescu from doing what she wanted. Young and Plum were the main defenders, but they were given all the help they needed.

Ionescu finished the game with four points on 1 of 7 shooting, five rebounds, five assists and five turnovers.

It was the kind of performance that reminds you of how the Aces steamrolled the WNBA and the Liberty the last two seasons. It was a defense that appears to be among the WNBA’s best, and a balanced offensive attack – both led by the WNBA’s best player: Wilson – and a raucous crowd.

This show of force reframes the rest of this series. The Liberty looked like the better team in Game 1, but Game 2 got pretty uncomfortable towards the end. The Aces smelled blood and came up just short, but then responded again in the second half on Friday.

They still need two more wins against a New York team that hasn’t lost three games in a row all season, but the version of the Aces we saw in Game 3 certainly looks capable of doing that.