NEW YORK — The Las Vegas Aces’ starting five was unrecognizable Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn.Instead of A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young taking the center circle for the tipoff, they sat at the end of the bench as Jewell Loyd, Dana Evans and Brianna Turner replaced them on the court. At first glance, it was a potentially curious decision considering the stage — a nationally televised ABC matchup against rival New York Liberty — and the importance of every game with regard to playoff seeding.Aces coach Becky Hammon couldn’t care less about those factors. Her team rolled into town at the tail end of a five-game road trip and less than 24 hours after a loss to the top-ranked Minnesota Lynx. As a result, the Aces looked like a shell of themselves in Sunday’s 111-71 loss to the Liberty.Load management has become an increasingly important topic as the WNBA adds games to its calendar, and Hammon isn’t shying away from it.“The health and safety of players comes first,” Hammon said. “Wherever we end up, we end up, and we’ll play whatever hand is dealt to us. To me, this was just a bigger picture type (of) scenario, so you take the ‘L,’ understanding that it pays dividends on the back end.”The last time Wilson, Gray and Young missed the same game was the 2024 regular-season finale against the Dallas Wings, which the Aces won handily 98-84.The league’s new collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified after the WNBA released its 2026 regular-season schedule, states that the league will “make reasonable and good faith efforts” to provide at least 20 hours between the scheduled start of a team’s first game of a back-to-back and the scheduled start of its second game. However, the WNBA follows a guideline, like the NBA, that gives teams a minimum of 22 hours between back-to-back games, and travel must be limited to no more than one time zone.