It’s likely no accident that one of the Mercury’s two worst defenders, Diana Taurasi and Tina Charles, was missing for nearly all of this stretch. Their defense, however? Phoenix boasted the WNBA’s worst defense through the first eight games before chopping nearly 10 points off its defensive rating in the last three contests. Throughout the first 11 games, the Mercury’s offense has consistently been about league average. Here is what has changed over the last three games to give Phoenix home going forward. The Mercury are now in 10th place in the league standings, but only one loss out of a playoff spot. This time, Phoenix trailed entering the fourth but controlled the final period en route to a seven-point triumph, one that even resulted in the Sparks firing their head coach. The team wouldn’t have to wait much longer for a victory, finally breaking the losing streak and getting into the win column two days later against the Los Angeles Sparks. I think in Chicago we started building some momentum, it carried over into today.
“We have to start stringing some wins together.
“We have not had a lot of things to hang our hat on, but tonight at least there was a resemblance of a team that if things start going our way a little bit we are going to be a scary team down the road,” head coach Vanessa Nygaard said after the loss to the Sun. The Mercury competed hard in spite of those challenges, this time possessing an 11-point lead with 6:18 to play before the Connecticut size finally wore them down. Phoenix was already undersized against the massive Sun without Griner, but were dealt another blow when Tina Charles was ruled out, forcing Sophie Cunningham to start and guard Jonquel Jones for much of the night. Up next came the Connecticut Sun, who were on a back-to-back after beating the Las Vegas Aces the night before.
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Still, it was the team’s second single-digit loss of the season (out of seven), a step up from a series of blowouts. The Mercury were up eight in the fourth quarter, boasting a win probability of 86.4 percent with 7:36 to play before only mustering six points the rest of the way. Phoenix started off this three-game stretch with a competitive defeat to the defending champion Sky. This past week, even though Phoenix only went 1-2, the Mercury showed the first signs of a turnaround, that their season might not be as hopeless as that loss to the Dream seemed.
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