Sick and shorthanded Phoenix Mercury fall late to New York Liberty
Once trailing by as many as 15, the Mercury battled back to take a five-point lead in the fourth quarter before ultimately losing 81-78 to the New York Liberty.
The sick, injured and shorthanded Phoenix Mercury battled hard before ultimately falling 81-78 to the New York Liberty on Wednesday.
The "Great Eight,” a term coined by Mercury guard Natasha Cloud to represent the team’s eight-player rotation, entered as 13.5-point underdogs but nearly pulled off the upset against the Liberty.
Coming off a 70-47 loss to the Sun in Connecticut on Tuesday, the Mercury had to battle heavy traffic just to be able to get to Brooklyn.
“Life throws you different things every day,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “Our routine was a little bit different. It might have woken us up a little bit, gave us some energy and it was an interesting bus ride over today, but we made it and (I’m) just proud of the group and how we continued to fight.”
Competitive imbalances have been a common theme in the WNBA and the argument could be made that a competitive imbalance again played a role on Wednesday.
The Liberty were a well-rested team having not played since Saturday’s loss in Minnesota, while Wednesday’s game was part of a stretch of three games in four nights and five games in eight nights for the Mercury.
“Give them credit they were rested,” Tibbetts said. “They had four days. Probably good practices and their execution was awesome. I thought we were a little bit slow foot in the first quarter but (New York) came out and scored 33 points. Just super proud of our group for stepping up and not giving in. It would have been easy to give in after last night.”
With the WNBA taking a monthlong break for the Olympics, each team’s 40 game schedule has been compressed into a shorter timeframe which has taken its toll on the already shorthanded Mercury.
“I personally think that the schedule is crazy,” Cloud said. “Obviously we understand that we have an Olympic break and all those things that are pushing these games up early. I’m thankful that we are chartering because this would be a hell of a stretch if we were still flying commercial. That doesn’t mean that the chartering stuff we still need to be better at.
“But nonetheless, the W’s got to figure something out whether that’s expanding or extending the schedule or whatever because this is how players get injured. Five games in eight days we’re barely sleeping, we’re getting sick and that’s not an excuse. We’re going to continue to show up every night and give our best foot forward but we need some help from our league with spacing these games out, it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Not only did the Mercury have to battle heavy traffic but they again found themselves shorthanded. The Mercury were once again without their star-center Brittney Griner (she has yet to play this season) who is out indefinitely with a broken toe and guard/forward Bec Allen who is not with the team and is in concussion protocol after taking a hard hit to the head in Saturday’s loss.
A bright spot for the depleted Mercury was Sug Sutton returned after missing Tuesday’s game with an ankle injury. She had seven assists despite shooting 0-for-4 from the field.
After an off-night on Tuesday, Kahleah Copper finished with 20 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two steals in Wednesday’s loss but she was again battling an illness.
Wednesday was the second-straight game Copper had four turnovers and shot 0-for-5 from beyond the arc.
Despite Copper’s struggles, the rest of the Mercury combined to have nine turnovers and combined to go 10-for-25 from three on Wednesday.
The Western Conference Player of the Week shot 7-for-19 from the field after shooting 2-for-11 on Tuesday.
Tibbetts cited the sickness going around the team as the reason for Copper’s dip in play.
“Last night she was a little bit under the weather,” Tibbetts said about Copper. “We’ve kind of got a bug going through our team right now.”
During her postgame press conference, an audibly ill Copper was asked what the difference was in the game. After ten seconds of silence while deliberating, she asked “Do you want to know what I really thought?”
After five more seconds of deliberation she said, “We just gotta play through it. We gotta play through it. On the road, against whoever, we gotta play through it.”
And the Mercury did just that. After trailing by 15 in the first quarter, they went on a 12-0 in the second quarter and shot 50% from the field (10-for-20). It was a near-flawless quarter as the team also had zero turnovers.
The Mercury went into the break trailing by only three and hung around for the rest of the night.
With 1:03 left in the third quarter, Copper scored a tough layup to give the Mercury the lead at 59-58, their first lead since it was 6-5 in the first quarter.
“We know we’re never out of games,” Copper said. “But we don’t want to get ourselves in a hole. We just have competitors and fighters so we never got rattled when we got down, but I’m proud of how we fought back and I just wish the outcome was different.”
Later in the third quarter, Diana Taurasi recorded her 500th career steal. She tied Lindsay Whalen for 18th all-time and became the only player in WNBA history to record at least 10,000 points, 2,000 rebounds, 2,000 assists and 500 steals in her career.
Taurasi, who finished with 14 points, four rebounds and a steal, knocked down two big 3-pointers to start the fourth quarter to help the Mercury take a 65-60 lead, but the Liberty went on an ensuing 9-0 run to take the lead back.
The game was filled with momentum swings, highlighted by the eight lead changes and two ties.
But New York ended the game on a 10-4 run and the veteran team that went to the WNBA Finals last year showed its experience and how rest and health played a factor down the stretch.
“This is a tough stretch for us,” Cloud said. “We have five games in eight days … we’re pusing through. We’re the “Great Eight” right now. Gotta hold down the fort until we can get all of our players back but these are the games that are gonna prepare us at the end of the season.”
Cloud had a season-high 21 points to go along with three assists, two rebounds, a steal and a block but the Mercury ultimately dropped their third straight to fall to 3-4 on the season.
The Mercury’s three-game road trip concludes Friday in Minnesota against the Lynx (4-2) at 6:30 p.m. MST. The game can be watched on ION or streamed on Mercury Live.
 | A guest post by
|