The Phoenix Mercury have lost three games during their WNBA playoffs run, each coming in Game 1 of each respective series.
Now playing in the first-ever best-of-7 finals series, Phoenix has its biggest margin for error after its latest Game 1 loss, 89-86 to the Las Vegas Aces.
“Not that it doesn’t matter, but like, it’s okay,” Mercury guard Kahleah Copper said postgame of what she took away from coming back in the earlier series. “This is a long series. … The mindset (after the losses) was back to the drawing board.
“We had the utmost confidence in our locker room and in our coaches to make the adjustments, so now it’s the same thing. It’s still just a little frustrating.”
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The way the Mercury lost likely adds to the frustration, as forward Alyssa Thomas missed two free throws when trailing by one with 24.6 seconds left.
Las Vegas collected the rebound and Jackie Young made her two free throws to extend the lead to three, and Satou Sabally missed a game-tying 3 in the final seconds.
“We’ve been in a ton of close games, we have played well in the fourth,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said postgame. “I thought we did some good things in this fourth quarter also. They made a couple plays down the stretch, we didn’t. That’s why this is gonna be a great series.
“It’s gonna come down to the last possessions of the game. They’ve been through it together. We’ve handled these situations very well, I thought we had some good looks. They just didn’t go down.”
Phoenix Mercury’s resilience has gotten them to this point
Phoenix’s run to the WNBA Finals has been about responding in the face of adversity, whether it was bouncing back from the playoff-opening loss with a 26-point victory in Game 2 against the New York Liberty or turning a 20-point deficit in Game 2 against the Minnesota Lynx into an overtime win.
Tibbetts highlighted the importance of getting a win early, especially with starting the series on the road in Las Vegas.
“It’s the first to four (wins),” Tibbetts said. “And we put ourselves in a position, right? These are two of the best teams. It’s why we’re the last two standing. … We’ve made some of these plays down the stretch — we didn’t make them tonight — but we’ll be ready on Sunday.”
Copper said before the championship series began that Phoenix’s fight stood out to her as far back as the regular season when it managed to win games without star players in the lineup.
“We had players who had never played in the W before, go out there and compete at the highest level and they went on a winning streak,” Copper said on Thursday. “They’re talking about us (now), but don’t forget about those players who held it down.”
Copper missed the first 11 games of the season, and Sabally and Thomas each missed five others. The time they missed jelling in their first season as teammates is juxtaposed with the Aces’ long-term chemistry that’s been established through multiple championship runs.
Game 2 is on Sunday at noon MST, and it can be seen on ABC.
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