PHOENIX — After playing arguably one of their worst games of the season in Thursday’s 98-89 loss to the Dallas Wings, the Phoenix Mercury returned home to PHX Arena in spectacular fashion.
Taking on that very same Wings team, however, this time without wing Kahleah Copper and forward Satou Sabally, the Mercury won easily 102-72, with several players having notable nights.
While the numerous individual accolades were highlighted and celebrated, what stood out most to the team was their ability to flip the script in just four days. They equated the quick turnaround to a playoff series, noting how important this experience is for the team as the season goes on.
“I think we got a good version of Dallas,” Tibbetts said pregame Monday. “They kind of jumped on us early, which we haven’t faced. … These are all going to be new situations for this team. It’s a really new team. I believe our three best players have played three games together this year, maybe four, I don’t know the exact number. So we’re still building, and so we need to go on the road and get pushed around a little bit and see how we respond when we come home.”
Sharpshooter Sami
It was clear from the start of the game that it was going to be Sami Whitcomb’s night. She made the first bucket of the game, a three assisted by Alyssa Thomas, then proceeded to score 11 of Phoenix’s first 12 points. By the end of the first quarter, she had 19 points – equaling the Wings’ total for the quarter – on 7-for-9 shooting from the floor and 4-for-5 shooting from deep.
At the half, she had 29 points with six made 3s. By the time the final buzzer rang, Whitcomb had scored a career-high 36 points. A third of the Mercury’s made field goals and half of their made 3-pointers came from Whitcomb’s hand.
“It’s fun when the basket is big for you like that,” Whitcomb told media postgame. “It’s nice to see some go down. And obviously, on this team, you’re gonna get lots of great looks, so you just keep shooting them. And it’s really fun.”
Monday’s performance was the culmination of weeks’ worth of shooting prowess for Whitcomb. During the first quarter of the season, in which Whitcomb primarily started due to Copper’s absence, she shot just 24.5% from three while attempting 4.8 a game. Since Copper’s season debut on June 15, Whitcomb has shot 51.2% from beyond the arc on an average of 8.6 3-point attempts.
Although she may have been a starter in Monday’s game, her shooting was just as precise as it had been the previous three weeks.
“If [Thomas] finds you and you have open shots, and she’s telling you to shoot them, you’re gonna keep shooting them,” Whitcomb said. “It instills a lot of confidence in you. So I wasn’t worried about that. We talked about the math mathing, and it finally, sort of, has now, [it’s] starting to turn the corner a little bit. But, you know, the rest of the season, if I don’t make shots for a stretch, if I do like, I’m gonna keep shooting them.”
Postgame, Tibbetts said that he tried to leave Whitcomb in the game long enough for her to hit 40 points, but ultimately, the 36-year-old’s exhaustion resulted in her taking a seat with 2:39 to play.
Sparking the Engine
This season, Alyssa Thomas has consistently produced, with eight double-doubles in 14 games. However, it seemed that Thomas, who is occasionally referred to as a “walking triple-double,” always managed to come up short in that field.
That is until Monday night. After finishing just two rebounds short against the Connecticut Sun on June 18 and just one rebound short against the New York Liberty on June 27, Thomas finally got her first triple-double as a member of the Phoenix Mercury. In Monday’s game, she had 15 points, 10 rebounds and 15 assists.
And of course, to her, it was no big deal.
“I mean, for me, it’s about winning,” Thomas told reporters postgame. “Of course, it’s always nice to get a triple-double. To get my first one in a Mercury uniform, I mean, have a crowd behind you cheering you on like that, it’s a warm welcome.”
The triple-double was the 16th of her career (regular season and playoffs), yet just the second in Mercury franchise history. She was the first in WNBA history to do it with 15-plus points and assists.
The triple-double wasn’t the only notable statistic for Thomas from Monday’s game. For the third time this season, Thomas recorded 15 assists, once again tying the Mercury’s single-game franchise record.
“I think AT, just her all-around game is pretty impressive,” Tibbetts said postgame before joking about Thomas’ teammates keeping her from breaking the franchise record. “You know … if Sami would have hit one more three, AT woulda had 16 assists. So we got to talk to Sandy about that a little bit.”
True to form, Thomas was more pleased with the team’s defensive performance. Specifically, hew matchup against rookie phenom Paige Bueckers took center stage in the first quarter.
“AT just being tough as heck [slowed Paige down], like making it hard,” Tibbetts said. “She knew that we were going to be shorthanded. She asked for that matchup. … We had to move [Thomas] off of [Buckers] because of fouls. But I thought AT really set the tone with the defensive pressure on Paige.”
Bueckers, who went for 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting in Dallas on Thursday, was limited to just 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting. Thomas knocked Bueckers out of rhythm early, making way for Whitcomb to close out the game as Bueckers’ primary defender.
Defense first
Outside of Thomas and Whitcomb’s work on Bueckers, the Mercury’s defense as a whole looked much-improved Monday night.
Where Dallas scored 32 points in Thursday’s first quarter, they had just 19 in the first 10 minutes Monday. The turnaround was huge, considering much of Thursday’s loss was attributed to a slow defensive start.
“We were just a step slow tonight, and it was from the start,” Tibbetts told reporters postgame in Dallas on Thursday. “I think they came out and were ready. We weren’t at the level that we needed to be. And then they got comfortable, and that that leads for a long night, and it was.”
Monday, Phoenix was ready to go from the tip, turning Dallas over 17 times in the first quarter. In total, the Mercury forced 18 turnovers that led to 24 points for Phoenix.
The pressure didn’t let up, even coming out of the halftime break. After giving up the first three points of the half to Dallas, Phoenix scored 19 points in a row. In that stretch, Dallas shot 0-for-8 from the field. The total 72 points that Dallas scored were the fourth-fewest the Mercury have given up in a game this season.
“The message, the challenge before the game was grit and toughness,” Tibbetts said postgame. “That’s what we just kept hitting home with. We’ve been good this year so far because our defense has been good, and the defense has slipped the last four or five games for whatever reason. I thought tonight we came out and set the tone early in the first half.”
Despite the off game Thursday, Phoenix quickly let it be known that they aren’t the type of team to play more than two bad games in a row. Once again, the resilience and ability to plug holes caused by injuries showed up. The Mercury are locked in a battle for second place heading into the All-Star break, but regardless of how the standings settle, Phoenix continues to prove how tough they are to catch off guard.
“Credit to our team and how we bounce back after our last performance,” Thomas said. “ I think for us, it’s just we’re going to continue to do what we do, despite whoever is out, it’s next person up, and we’re just going to continue to play with this team.”
