The Phoenix Mercury didn’t need much time to exact their revenge on the Las Vegas Aces after losing to them in the season opener. The interesting part is that not too much changed in the circumstances from the season opener to game three. Both times were in Las Vegas, both times the Mercury were missing Brittney Griner, and both times the Aces were missing Chelsea Gray.
So what went differently this time?
Kahleah Copper went off this game, just like she did the game before against the Atlanta Dream. Copper ended up with an impressive 37 points off of 23 field goals and only 2 free throws. Many of her points ended up being huge momentum crushers for the Aces, and somehow managed to score an extremely difficult double-clutch layup to seal the deal on the game.
Copper didn’t win this game alone, however impressive and obvious it is that she is leading this team in the scoring category. There were so many other things that the team did right to earn this win in Vegas.
Game Flow
First Half
The Aces game planned to attack the paint on a team missing their defensive stalwart in Brittney Griner. Natasha Mack and A’ja Wilson battled in the paint in the first quarter, trading blows and points. Kahleah Copper started this game hot with two quick three-pointers to quickly snuff out the crowd and draw the Aces first time out.
Natasha Mack dominated the offensive boards and managed to keep feeding Kahleah a third three-pointer.
The Vegas Aces managed to cut the lead to 7 after an offensive rebound by Kiah Stokes and a trailing Kelsey Plum floats to an open lane to the basket for the easy layup. Even though the Aces were forcing a comeback, Kahleah already accounted for 13 points for the Mercury in the first quarter by the 2-minute and 40-second mark.
At the end of the first quarter, the Aces started to rally back with an 8-0 run and cut the lead to just 22. The possible correlation to the Mercury struggling to hit shots at the end of the quarter might’ve just been the fact that Kahleah got subbed out. Game goes to 25-20 with the Mercury in the lead.
The second quarter was more of a struggle defensively as the Aces started to slice up the Mercury’s defense with their passing. They managed to start hitting threes and. surgically dismantling the defense with their passing to create some easy buckets right under the basket. At this point, the Aces take the lead back. 39-35 Aces up.
Natasha Cloud displayed her ability to be a spark plug for this offense by drawing the foul on A’ja Wilson with the and-one layup. We noticed that not only Natasha Cloud, but Diana Taurasi and Kahleah Copper have been playing whoever offense on Kelsey Plum.
Kahleah Copper started to drive on Kelsey Plum to the basket, but managed to hit her knee and was in very obvious pain. She came out of the game to tend to it, but luckily she came back feeling good enough to play. With the kind of luck that the Mercury has had in the past couple of seasons, we should feel extremely lucky and grateful that nothing came from the knee bump to Copper.
Right before the end of the half, we managed to experience a small experience of Spicy Sophie chirping away at Jackie Young after she poked the ball loose from Cunningham bringing up the ball.
The first half ends quickly after that, but the first half was characterized by ultra competitiveness and the lead swapping back and forth between Phoenix and Seattle.
Second Half
The Aces struggled to be consistent beyond the arc, but Kelsey Plum came out of that halftime with guns blazin’. But with every three the Aces made, the more Mercury players like Rebecca Allen, Natasha Cloud, and were draining threes of their own.
The story of the first half continued on in the second half. The Aces struggled to make three-pointers, so they turned to scratching and clawing their way into the paint to score some baskets.
Natasha Cloud did an amazing job leading and directing the team through her voice, energy, and passing all while keeping the defense honest with her own scoring ability.
Aces started to get visibly frustrated with the struggles they had to box out the Mercury. Coach Tibbetts’ game plan involved putting only one player in the post, but the guards were all over the place when the ball went up for grabs. It’s much easier to locate and box out a slow-moving player, but when you have 4 guards moving all over the place and snatching up rebounds like eagles catch fish, it would be an extremely difficult task to manage.
The Diana Taurasi/Kelsey Plum showdown continued from the season opener as they exchanged blows via the three-ball. Natasha continues to cut up the Aces defense with backdoor cuts and drives to the basket. The Mercury lead the Aces at the end of the 3rd quarter, 73-68.
Sug Sutton showed great improvement from the last two games and it was more visible in the 4th quarter where she made a huge contribution. After a layup and a huge three-pointer, Sug extended the lead. to the largest of the night up to that point. That shot silenced the crowd as Becky Hammon called a timeout to try and regroup her squad.
This is where the historical night not only for Kahleah Copper comes in, but also for the Mercury as a franchise. So far this year, the team has shot lights out in Vegas from long distance, and tonight they tied their franchise record of 16 three-pointers in a single game, a feat that hasn’t been challenged since 2010 against what was back then the Tulsa Shock (now the Dallas Wings).
The most concerning part of the game was the last 4 minutes of the game though. The Aces managed to score 15 points while the Mercury struggled to get the ball in the basket. Even Diana Taurasi missed two really critical free throws that seemed to tense the situation into a tighter ball of anxiety. That difficult layup that Kahleah Copper made was more clutch with the full context involved, seeing as it was the only shot they made in those 4 minutes.
Luckily, with an inbound pass stolen by Kahleah and a clear lane to an easy layup, the Mercury managed to survive the last-ditch effort by the Aces to swipe the win away.
This win means a whole lot more to the Mercury than any ordinary win. They haven’t beat the Aces since October 8, 2021. The Las Vegas Aces are the benchmark of the WNBA. If you can beat them, or even just compete with them, then you know that you’ve got yourself a really good team. After seeing the way this team interacts with each other on and off the court, and how they respect Coach Tibbetts, I guarantee you we have ourselves a really special season of Mercury basketball underway.
Up Next
The Phoenix Mercury return to the Valley to face the winless Washington Mystics (0-4) on Thursday at 7 PM PST. You can watch the game on AZ Family Sports, Prime Video, or Mercury Live. The best way to watch is to go support the team at the Footprint Center and be a part of the X Factor!
