Aside from overcoming injuries, the biggest challenge facing the Phoenix Mercury this season is maintaining a winning percentage above .500.
Phoenix is 12-12 and currently sits sixth in the WNBA standings heading into Tuesday’s game against the struggling Washington Mystics (6-18) and will host WNBA All-Star weekend starting Thursday.
Tuesday’s game will begin early at 8:30 a.m. Phoenix time.
Before: Taurasi, Greiner, and Shenzhen return after defeat
“Obviously, we want to finish with a win. Over .500. That’s our goal. We’re going to finish the right way,” first-year coach Nate Tibbetts said after the Mercury’s second loss at Connecticut. “But if we play like we did tonight, we’re not going to win. We weren’t very good tonight. If we play like that, we’re not going to win any game, and we have to get better.”
Washington finished second worst, having started the season 0-12, the worst start to a franchise-wide season.
“It’s important to get this win over D.C.,” Beck Allen said after the Mercury’s loss at Connecticut on Sunday. “We want to be at our peak, especially going into the break. We want to be together and play the way we want to play and represent Phoenix Mercury basketball.”
Things started to look up for the Mercury last week, as they won three in a row. They won twice at home and away against Dallas (5-19) on July 3 and last Wednesday, and in between the Dallas game on July 7, Natasha Cloud scored a season-high 31 points in a win over Los Angeles (6-17).
The team’s best record to date was 12-10 after the win in Dallas, two games above .500. The three-game winning streak matches the longest of the season.
The Mercury was crushed 96-69 by the Connecticut Sun (18-5) on Sunday. Starters Diana Taurasi (left lower leg), Brittney Griner (right hip) and Cloud (left knee) returned after missing multiple games. The Mercury suffered their third loss in a four-game season series against Connecticut, which has the league’s second-best record.
The Mercury have had seven different starting lineups this season. Their best starting five have been Cloud, Taurasi, Griner, Allen and the league’s second-leading scorer, Kahlia Cofer (23.3 points per game). The team is 6-4 when they are on the court together.
Some of the more glaring issues Phoenix has had are the gap between their offensive and defensive ratings and the lack of second-chance points between the first and second halves. Phoenix ranked eighth in offense in the first half but fifth in the second. Defensively, they went from eighth in the first half to 11th in the second half.
In terms of second-chance points, they went from 11th to first in the league between the first and second halves.
But it was different on Sunday, when Allen (six points, five rebounds in the win) cited Connecticut’s 44-33 outing of Phoenix and its 25-11 win in the second-chance point battle as one of the reasons it won.
Phoenix’s rebounding is also a problem, ranking 11th in the 12-team league behind only Washington. Phoenix finished last in that category in 2023.
Despite the Mercury’s top five starting players missing a combined 22 games, they kept Copper healthy all season. She finished with 17 points (on 8-of-17 shooting) after a good 5-of-8 start in the first half against the Sun, and she’s in the MVP discussion with seven games where she’s scored 30 or more points.
But Sophie Cunningham said the team must take responsibility and perform better in the second half of the season after the Olympic break.
“I think she should definitely be in the MVP discussion. She’s having a great season. I’m glad she’s on our team, but again, it’s not 1-of-5,” Cunningham (seven points, three rebounds in the win) said.
“Everybody else has to do their part. We have to start winning games. We have to string together wins, play together, play defense together. So she brings a lot. We’re very happy to have her in Phoenix, but we have to figure out our stuff, too.
This article originally appeared in The Arizona Republic. Mercury aims for .500 record as WNBA All-Star Game begins
