(Photo credit: Lucas Peltier)

The defending champion Las Vegas Aces return from the WNBA's World Cup break on Thursday in Seattle, with four games remaining in the regular season as they prepare for the playoffs.

The Aces, who won three straight before the break, will face the cellar-dwelling Storm, which dropped four of five.

Las Vegas is two games behind Golden State, but only one ahead of Atlanta and Indiana.

Aces coach Becky Hammon was asked during a training session about the challenges ahead.

'I mean, it's a funky rhythm for everybody,' Hammon said in a video posted on the ESPN Las Vegas YouTube channel. 'Everybody's going to have to kind of just dive right in and hit the ground running. Every team is in the same kind of situation to a certain degree. Obviously, with how many players you have gone, it hits us a little bit differently.'

The Aces (27-13) had four players compete in the World Cup -- Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young with Team USA, Stephanie Talbot with Australia and Mai Yamamoto with Japan. Four-time WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson didn't play for the U.S. because of health concerns.

'Those teams that have multiple people on international teams ... nobody cares,' Hammon said. 'Nobody feels sorry for us.'

The Aces' final regular-season games -- two against the Storm (8-32) and one each against Los Angeles and Phoenix -- are all against teams who have already been eliminated from postseason contention.

The Aces defeated visiting Seattle 101-91 on June 8 in the only previous meeting between the teams this season.

The Storm's youthful frontcourt of forwards Dominique Malonga (France) and Awa Fam (Spain) and center Ezi Magbegor (Australia) all participated in the World Cup. Malonga and Fam averaged double-digit scoring, while Magbegor suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and is sidelined for the rest of the season.

'It's a work in progress,' first-year Storm coach Sonia Raman said about her 'Big Three' before the World Cup.

During the World Cup break, the Storm announced wing Katie Lou Samuelson would miss the rest of the season after undergoing arthroscopic left knee surgery.

--Field Level Media