Liz Cambage, 'grateful to be back' after bout with COVID-19, returns as Las Vegas Aces notch victory

7:26 PM ET

Mechelle VoepelESPN.com

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Mechelle Voepel covers the WNBA, ladies's college basketball, and other school activities for espnW. Voepel all started masking women's basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN considering 1996.

Las Vegas core Liz Cambage lower back to WNBA online game action for the first time given that Aug. 28 in Sunday's standard-season finale, after dealing with COVID-19. She performed 9½ minutes and had 4 aspects and 4 rebounds as the Aces won 84-83 at Phoenix.

"After lying in bed for two½ weeks, I've lost my cardio a little," Cambage observed on a postgame video call. "i am just very grateful the COVID did not get in my lungs, and that i suppose I've acquired the vaccine to thank for that. i'm grateful to be again with the girls; it became complicated."

because the Aces are the No. 2 seed within the upcoming WNBA playoffs, they have a double bye into the superior-of-5 semifinals that beginning Sept. 28. That offers Cambage an opportunity to work on conditioning.

"The girls definitely held it down and locked into that 2d spot, and that is the reason truly going to support me get back into it," Cambage spoke of of the Aces, who secured their seed Friday and accomplished 24-8 with Sunday's win. "They want a wreck and i need to turn it up. they'll get their leisure and that i'll are trying to seize up with them. I misplaced 15 kilos with this, so i go to be relocating light on the court."

Cambage, 30, mentioned she all started to suppose body aches after the Aces lower back domestic from a three-online game street go back and forth in late August. She entered COVID-19 protocol and remoted with headaches and chronic physique aches.

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"i'm so fortunate my mama is on the town all of the method from Australia," Cambage pointed out. "i'm so grateful she become right here to take care of me and get me lower back on my toes, and that she did not get [COVID-19]. She's the precise MVP in the mean time."

Cambage believes here is her 2nd bout with COVID-19; within the first, her respiratory equipment became impacted. In March 2020, she wrote on Instagram that she thinks she gotten smaller COVID-19 in December 2019 while playing in China. She changed into informed then that it became a "viral an infection," and it resulted in a quick hospitalization. Cambage said it took greater than a month for her lungs to be freed from phlegm.

She did not play in the WNBA's bubble in Bradenton, Florida, final season as she received a medical exemption.