A week ago, Justine Pissott was a development player sitting in street clothes on the Indiana Fever bench.
On Saturday, she was in an Aces uniform, bringing Michelob ULTRA Arena to its feet with a record-setting WNBA debut.
Pissott scored 19 points in 10 minutes, made five 3-pointers and gave Las Vegas one of those rare garbage-time moments that did not feel like garbage time at all. By the end of the night, the WNBA had called it what it was: a record-setting debut.
However, the record was only part of the story.
The room changed
The game was over before Pissott got her first real Las Vegas moment.
The starters were mostly done. The Aces were up by a number that made the scoreboard look broken. The afternoon had already become a franchise-record demolition of Phoenix.
Then the rookie checked in and somehow found another gear in a game that should have been coasting home.
Her first shot went in, a 28-foot 3.
Nice moment.
Then the second went in. Another followed. Then another.
By then, Michelob ULTRA Arena had stopped reacting like it was watching garbage time. Instead, the building started buzzing like it had found a secret track on an album everyone thought was already finished.
This was not polite applause for the new kid. It was unexpected electricity. It made you look up from final-margin math and remember why live sports still own the room.
And yes, at least one Dice City Sports reporter felt the hair stand up on his arms and the back of his neck.
Cold welcome
The Aces made it official before Pissott even reached the podium.
In the locker room, her new teammates swarmed her and dumped bottled water over her head. It was loud, chaotic and perfect for a rookie who had just turned her first real WNBA minutes into a record.
A’ja Wilson called it “a little bath.”
Pissott corrected the temperature.
“A cold one,” she said. “A real cold one.”
That was the literal part. Meanwhile, the basketball part was colder.
In the video, Chelsea Gray put the whole night in two words.
“You cold!” Gray shouted.
She was right. Pissott was cold with it, lights out and completely unbothered once the ball started finding her hands.
Her first shot was a 3. The next was a jumper. After that came another 3, another 3, a layup and one more 3 for good measure.
Pissott finished 7-for-8 from the field and 5-for-6 from 3. She also added two rebounds and her first career assist, feeding Cheyenne Parker-Tyus for a basket in the fourth quarter.
That is not easing into a new team. That is walking through the door and rearranging the furniture.
Do what you do
The assignment was simple.
Pissott said she was nervous. Of course she was. She had just joined a championship locker room, stepped into a new system and entered a game where most of the heavy lifting had already been done.
Then Becky Hammon gave her the cleanest possible instruction.
“Go in there and do what you do,” Hammon told her.
So Pissott did.
“I took a breath, played my game and did what I had to do,” Pissott said.
The Aces signed a shooter. Then the shooter shot.
Hammon did not pretend there was some long evaluation period behind the moment. Instead, she was honest about how new this is.
“I just met her,” Hammon said.
Then came the reason Las Vegas made the move.
“Obviously, you guys know I love shooters, and she can shoot that thing,” Hammon said. “That’s why we went out and got her.”
No mystery. No franchise-speak. No overcomplication.
Las Vegas saw a 6-foot-4 shooter who did not have a real path in Indiana. So the Aces brought her in. In her first minutes, she looked like someone who understood exactly why she was here.
A’ja saw it
Wilson did not need Pissott to win Saturday’s game.
By the fourth quarter, the Aces had already turned Phoenix into a franchise-record footnote. Wilson had 21 points and 15 rebounds in 25 minutes. Chelsea Gray had 15 points and 11 assists. Las Vegas had already made the Mercury look overwhelmed.
Still, Wilson reacted like Pissott’s moment mattered.
“The biggest thing with Justine was that I wanted her to feel comfortable,” Wilson said. “It’s a lot coming into a new system and a new team, let alone the Aces.”
That last part matters.
This is not a rebuild where a rookie can play through everything because the standings do not matter. This is Las Vegas. The standard is different. The room has rings. The rotation has All-Stars. So, naturally, the mistakes get louder.
Wilson kept the message simple anyway.
“Go do you,” Wilson told her. “Just go do you, and we’ll follow behind you.”
That is leadership. It also is trust.
For a rookie who had just arrived, it had to feel like a door opening.
The backpack is coming
There was one more important piece of rookie business.
After the game, Wilson was asked how soon she would start working on getting Pissott a rookie backpack.
Wilson did not hesitate.
“I got it,” Wilson said. “Go get it. Go get it.”
Then she explained the inventory.
“Justine has a water bottle,” Wilson said. “She has a lunchbox. She has the whole line.”
The backpack is a Toy Story one, which feels almost too perfect. A rookie shooter walks into a new team, catches fire in 10 minutes and suddenly gets welcomed into the Aces’ version of the toy chest.
This is part of the Aces’ culture, too. It is not just the shot-making, the spacing or the record. It is the way a veteran locker room folds someone in when that player shows she belongs.
“When I get my rookies, I have to show them, ‘Come on now. You’ve got to be cute,’” Wilson said. “It’s a cute one.”
Pissott got the water shower first.
The Toy Story backpack is apparently next.
Not just a blowout
Saturday could have been remembered only as the biggest win in Aces history.
That would have been fair. Las Vegas beat Phoenix 106-58, set a full-franchise record with a 48-point margin and led by as many as 54.
But Pissott gave the day another layer.
She made the fourth quarter feel alive. She made a decided game feel new. She gave the Aces a bench story, a rookie story and, maybe, a little more shooting to think about as the back half of the season keeps moving.
Hammon liked the shooting, but she also noticed the rest.
“I was happy that she made some nice basketball reads as well, not just the shooting,” Hammon said. “We’re really excited to have her with our group.”
That is the part to watch now.
The five 3s were the flash. The fit is the question. Can Pissott defend enough, process fast enough and keep finding those pockets next to the Aces’ stars?
Maybe. Maybe not right away.
But Saturday made one thing clear.
When Pissott got her first chance in Las Vegas, she did not look overwhelmed by the lights.
She looked cold.
Up next
The timing could not be better.
Indiana comes to Michelob ULTRA Arena on Sunday, less than 24 hours after Pissott’s record-setting Aces debut. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
The Fever beat Las Vegas last week. Now they get another look at the rookie they did not use.
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Dice City Sports editor Mark Hebert covers the Las Vegas Aces, Vegas Golden Knights, Las Vegas Raiders, Athletics, and UNLV baseball and softball. He has 24 years of journalism experience, is also a senior reporter at Exhibit City News, and previously covered the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers. Follow him on X or connect on LinkedIn.
