Phoenix Mercury's 6-game winning streak snapped via Las Vegas Aces' staunch defense
The Aces limited the Mercury to 24 3-point attempts, the Mercury's second-fewest this season, in Sunday's 84-81 Las Vegas victory.
PHOENIX — The Phoenix Mercury saw their six-game winning streak snapped on Sunday by way of the Las Vegas Aces’ stout defense in an 84-81 loss.
The Aces (8-8), who allow the second fewest 3-point attempts per game (21.6), took away the 3 from the Mercury (12-5), holding Phoenix to 24 attempts, the Mercury's second-fewest this season.
“I mean, they also give up the most points in the paint (37.9), right? I think defensively, you gotta choose,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said.
“You're gonna take away the 3, or you're gonna protect the paint. And they've kind of committed to taking away threes, and we only got 24 of them up tonight.”
Phoenix shot 10-for-24 (41.7%) from 3 on Sunday after making a WNBA-record 35 3-pointers (35-for-74) over their previous two games.
“I mean, in my opinion, (the Mercury) are probably the hottest team in the league right now,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said.
“You know, they put a hurting on New York the other night, but holding that team to basically 21 (points) and under for three quarters is really hard to do. So, the attention to detail was there, the necessary physicality was there. And really it was that third quarter.”
The Aces were able to limit the Mercury, who led the league in 3-point attempts (30.3) entering Sunday, by clogging the paint and forcing Phoenix into taking shots in the midrange, which Tibbetts refers to as the “manure strip.”
The third quarter was when the aforementioned was at its worst.
Las Vegas held Phoenix to just 10 points in the third, which is the second-fewest number of points Phoenix has had in a quarter this season. The Mercury shot 3-for-18 (16.7%) in the third and 1-for-5 (20%) from 3.
In addition, Phoenix did not take a single shot inside the restricted area in the third quarter.
When asked about the Mercury’s third-quarter slump, Tibbetts was left without answers.
“I'll have to go back and look at the film. I'm not really sure,” Tibbetts said. “In that third (quarter), obviously, scoring 10 points is not ideal. But again, I thought Vegas did a really good job. They were extremely aggressive.”
After the Aces took a 59-50 lead heading into the final period, the Mercury opened the fourth on a 16-3 run to go ahead 66-62 with 6:15 to play.
The Mercury got back into the game via their bread and butter — 3-point shooting and scoring in the paint.
“I think early on they (the Aces) were guarding the 3 pretty well and we missed a lot of opportunities to get to the basket,” Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas said.
Thomas led the way for Phoenix with 16 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
“You want games like this since this is what the playoffs are going to be like. So, definitely a learning lesson for us today of how we want to come out ready to play.”
Sami Whitcomb had three of her four 3-pointers in the fourth, and 12 of the Mercury’s 30 paint-points also came in the final period.
After her struggles to start the season, Whitcomb’s impressive run continued Sunday. She finished with 14 points and was 4-for-9 (44.4%) from 3.
She has now shot 22-for-43 (51.2%) from 3 over her past five games, and she tied a WNBA record with it being her fifth straight game with at least four made 3-pointers (Caitlin Clark in 2024, Epiphany Prince in 2012 and Diana Taurasi in 2007).
But the Mercury were not able to build on their 16-3 run. Aaliyah Nye made two huge 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions (sandwiched by a Thomas bank shot) to tie the score again, a game which featured 10 ties and 17 lead changes, as neither team created much separation down the stretch.
Following a Kahleah Copper 3, which put the Mercury up by two with 1:25 remaining, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray came up huge for the Aces.
Young made a layup out of the timeout, and then on the next possession after Gray blocked Copper, which eventually led to a long miss from Satou Sabally, Gray was able to secure the rebound.
On the following possession after Nye missed a 3, Young grabbed an offensive rebound, which led to an A’ja Wilson layup with 22 seconds left to put the Aces up, 83-80.
Wilson finished with a game-high 26 points and 18 rebounds. She is the only player this season to have at least 25 points and 18 rebounds in the same game.
“I feel like we are a lot of women that work on our craft,” Wilson said. “We execute it and we defend well, so I have to give all the respect to Phoenix for sure for making it hard on us, but I just love that we weathered the storm.
“I feel like the old Aces a couple weeks ago would have probably crumbled, but we weathered the storm and we got back into it, and we got together on the defensive end. So, I think that's kind of what put us there.”
Whitcomb would then have two opportunities from 3 to tie the game, one with 12 seconds left, and one with 1.1 seconds left after Nye missed a free throw, but Whitcomb couldn’t get either one to fall.
“ … But we need these games,” Tibbetts said. “I told the group at halftime, I told the group after the game, this is a young group. We haven't been through a lot of high-level games together.
“Obviously, we've done it individually and with different teams, but you have to go through these things, and (Las Vegas) has been in a ton of these games, and so I thought we got some good looks down the stretch. Obviously that offensive rebound hurt us there, but we need these games.”
The Mercury will look to bounce back on Thursday when they take on the Dallas Wings (5-13) at 5 p.m. MST. The game can be watched on Arizona’s Family Sports.