Record 3-point shooting performance sees Phoenix Mercury sweep by Chicago Sky
The Mercury set a franchise record of 17 made 3-pointers in Saturday's win over the Sky. Six Mercury players made at least two 3-pointers, tying a WNBA record.
A record-breaking 3-point shooting performance saw the Phoenix Mercury roll past the Chicago Sky, 107-86 to sweep their four-game roadtrip.
The Mercury (11-4) set a new franchise record of 17 made 3-pointers, eclipsing the 16 made 3-pointers they had against the Chicago Sky on May 27. The Mercury finished 17-for-35 (48.6%) from 3.
Sami Whitcomb led the way with 17 points and had a season-high five 3-pointers.
“We want to shoot 3s,” Whitcomb said. “We want to shoot the most 3s in the league, that's been our MO. Defense, 3s at the rim, and the coaches and the organization put together a team that's got phenomenal shooting, and then people that can get downhill and find those players.
“So I think it's great when they're rolling. And it's great when we can play defense well enough that we can get those stops and get running, because that's kind of how we're going to generate those 3s. And I thought, that's what it was today. I thought we played really great defense. So we were able to get out and run and generate some great shots.”
Whitcomb was shooting a career-low 24.5% from deep entering Sunday’s game at Las Vegas but has shot 13-for-27 (48.1%) from 3 over her previous three games.
All five of Whitcomb’s 3s came in the second quarter, and her five 3-pointers in the first half were more than any Mercury player has made in an entire game this season.
But as good as Whitcomb was, once again the Mercury flexed their bench depth.
The Mercury scored a season-high 49 bench points on Saturday, and six different players made at least two 3-pointers, tying a WNBA record.
“I think we’ve not shot it as good as we're gonna shoot it,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “I think adding Kahleah (Copper) is gonna add another element to just our attack.
“(Whitcomb) has been shooting extremely well. But I think it was just a credit to our group. There's gonna be nights when you get 35 to 40 of them up and you make almost half of them. And so it starts with (Alyssa Thomas) in her force that she plays with going downhill, and her knowing that we've got shooters around her.”
Thomas has assisted on eight of Whitcomb’s 13 3-pointers over Whitcomb’s previous three games.
Thomas finished with 11 points (on 5-for-9 shooting) and eight assists in 21 minutes, just missing out on what would have been a double-double for the sixth straight game.
Satou Sabally (2-for-3), Kathryn Westbeld (2-for-6), Monique Akoa Makani (2-for-2) and Copper (2-for-6) all had a pair of 3s, Kitija Laksa added a few more (3-for-7) and Kalani Brown’s 3 with 25.2 seconds left set the franchise record.
It was the second made 3-pointer from Brown this season and just the second made 3-pointer during Brown’s six-year WNBA career (2-for-10).
Over the past two seasons, the Mercury have now had six games with at least 15 made 3s, more than the previous 27 years combined.
Mercury get off to strong start despite early tip
Despite the noon start and playing in their third game in four days, the Mercury looked every bit the better team from the onset.
The Sky scored the first points of the game and never led again. A 9-0 Mercury run in the first quarter helped them to a season-high 31 points in the opening period, a mark they set with 2:23 left in the quarter, as their previous high was 24.
Sabally was on pace to have a bounce-back game. She had 12 points and went 4-for-5 from the field and 2-for-2 from 3 in the first period but found herself in foul trouble and played limited minutes.
As she picked up her fourth personal at the 7:14 mark in the third, she played just 18 minutes, but finished with 15 points (on 5-for-7 shooting and 2-for-3 from 3) after she shot 4-for-18 on Thursday and was 0-for-8 from 3.
The Mercury were also the more aggressive team early, as they forced eight Sky turnovers in the first quarter, which led to 13 points.
The Mercury finished with a season-high 29 points off Chicago’s 21 turnovers.
“I knew that we were going to be tired and a little bit fatigued, but we wanted to try to wake up our bodies, not so much to give Chicago trouble, but just to try to get us going, and that was something that was used years ago, that I've always kind of liked and stole from some really good coaches that I got to see at a young age. And our team has bought into that, like they like being aggressive,” Tibbetts said.
“I thought the first quarter our full-court pressure gave them issues. I didn't think our ball pressure was as good at the end of the first, and to start the second, but in the second half we came out and really set the tone in that third quarter.”
In addition to Chicago having a league-worst 3-point defense (entering Saturday the Sky allowed opponents a league-worst 10.3 3-point makes per game), the Sky also averaged a league-worst 18.7 turnovers per game and allowed a league-worst 14.3 fast-break points per game, which played right into allowing the Mercury to play in transition.
The Mercury had a season-high 24 fast-break points, with 13 of those coming in the third quarter alone.
Phoenix forced seven Chicago turnovers in the period and six came during an 18-0 Mercury run as the Sky went 5:06 without scoring.
“I mean, third quarters are huge, obviously, for some teams that can be when they sort of hit the snooze button and for us it's when we want to come out and really make sure that we set the tone again, and that we can put games away, put teams away,” Whitcomb said.
“So it's really important for us. We don't want to let teams back in if we have the lead. But furthermore, if it's a close game, we want to really make sure that's where we're kind of separating ourselves.”
The Mercury’s 34 points in the third were a season-high for them for any quarter as they built up a 92-58 lead.
Phoenix went up by as many as 36 in the fourth but shot just two 3-pointers in the final eight minutes, including Brown’s at the end of the game.
Brown had nine of her 11 points in the final period (and shot 4-for-6), as the Mercury worked the ball inside to her, feeding her in the post.
The Mercury will return home and have almost a week off before they have a rematch against the New York Liberty (10-2) on Friday at 7 p.m. MST. The game can be watched on ION.