A'ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces kept receipts from haters, then trolled them upon winning back-to-back WNBA titles

• The Las Vegas Aces won the 2023 WNBA Finals — and are the first back-to-back champions since 2002.
• Las Vegas players held onto receipts from haters and skeptics throughout the season.

The Las Vegas Aces are the 2023 WNBA champions and the first franchise to win back-to-back titles in more than 20 years.

And the players and coaches seemingly remember every single person who doubted their ability to accomplish the rare feat.

The Aces took down the star-studded New York Liberty on the road in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals to hoist their second trophy in as many seasons. And shortly after popping the champagne to celebrate, the team's superstars pulled out their receipts to troll opposing fans and players.

Two-time WNBA MVP and Defensive Player of the Year A'ja Wilson — who added 2023 WNBA Finals MVP honors to her already massive collection of accolades — took some time in the early hours of Thursday morning to clap back at some folks on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

At 1:06 a.m., she posted "Y'all thought we was leaving NY empty handed after all we been through this season???? Hahahahahahaha nahhhhhh." Then, two minutes later, she quoted an August post from an apparent Liberty fan and wrote "circling back cause I bookmarked things …. 'tAkE tHiS L' ."

From there, Wilson turned her attention to MVP voting for the 2023 regular season, which was published on September 26. She finished in third place and received a fourth-place tally from an unknown voter, sparking a league-wide uproar and a manhunt for the anonymous media member.

Wilson, who won the award in 2022 and improved in most statistical categories this season, was widely considered one of the favorites to win again in 2023. The superstar forward admitted at the time that "it hurt like hell" to miss out on the honor, and she made it clear on X that the slight motivated her to dominate in the playoffs.

Around 2 a.m., she re-shared a congratulatory post from NBA superstar Ja Morant that said, in part, "we know how the awards should've went but …. ." Then, roughly 30 minutes later, Wilson posted "3rd place + a 4th place vote ."

Wilson was far from the only member of Las Vegas' squad to take up such a mantle. During Wednesday's trophy presentation, guard Sydney Colson grabbed the microphone from ESPN's Holly Rowe and subtly trolled New York guard Sabrina Ionescu.

"People wanted to count us out because we had two of our starters down, but they don't know we got some dogs on this team," Colson said in front of the Liberty's home crowd. "So I've got two words to say: night night!"

When Ionescu clinched New York's lone win of the lopsided series with a clutch three-pointer, she celebrated by putting two hands to her cheek in an homage to Steph Curry's famed "night night" pose.

Colson later revealed that Ionescu had told her to "take her ass to the bench" during Game 3. Because the Aces were shorthanded due to a slew of injuries, Colson played more in Game 4 than she had in any other game of the 2023 season.

She finished Wednesday night's series clincher with a higher +/- — a statistic indicating her team's net points while she was in the game — than any other player on the floor for either team.

Star Aces guard Kelsey Plum also offered some public criticism of the Liberty and their players once the series was over. She said she and her teammates "knew that, as much as they're a team, they're not a team, if that makes sense."

"They're really good individual players, but they don't care about each other," Plum added, per Yahoo Sports' Cassandra Negley. "And you can tell in those moments. They revert back to individual basketball."

New York's players and coaches took offense to the slight, with Liberty superstar Jonquel Jones calling Plum's comments "classless." Plum insisted that her words had been "taken extremely out of context" but apologized for "how it came off."

On top of all the drama with their finals opponents, the Aces also took aim at internal issues involving former Las Vegas players. Former Sixth Woman of the Year Dearica Hamby filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after claiming the Aces traded her ahead of the season because she was pregnant. And ex-Las Vegas guard Riquna Williams was barred from the team after her arrest on domestic violence charges, which have since been dropped.

Plum referred to such incidents as "adversity" for the Aces. Head coach Becky Hammon said the team had "had our good names slandered."