Las Vegas – The Phoenix Mercury has already erased two distinct 0-1 deficits on the way to the WNBA final, but the circumstances where they lost the opening of the Friday series make this situation a little more precarious.
These circumstances are looming while the Mercury is preparing to face the AS in Las Vegas in match 2 of the WNBA final on Sunday.
The mercury checked the first 34 minutes of match 1 and almost held the head of the entire three and a half quarters. They obtained a historic performance of shooting in the first half of star Kahleah Cooper at the tune of five 3 points and held the pillars A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young at a 34%combined shooting.
And yet, after a pair of failed free throws of the candidate of the perennial MVP Alyssa Thomas with 24.6 seconds remaining, the mercury is down 0-1.
Not to mention the advantage of rest between that Phoenix has entered, because Phoenix obtained four days of rest after an early dismissal of the N ° 1 seed of Minnesota, while Las Vegas entered just two days of rest after being pushed to the absolute edge against a series team n ° 5 in the short term.
“I think that, as competitors, we are disappointed,” said Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts. “These are two big teams. I thought it was a hell of a match (Friday). The two teams were able to win. We would have loved being 1-0, but it’s a big team there, right?
“We are going to have to win in this court at some point, perhaps twice, but we have had it. We cannot hang our heads today. It is a new day, and our approach must be in the same way that we have approached these other series.”
Despite the injury precursors to Alyssa Thomas (wrist) and Sami Whitcomb (knee) in match 1, Phoenix had a full list for Shootarrand on Saturday.
On the side of the Aces, the star goalkeeper Jackie Young was held from Shootarrand because of what Becky Hammon called Fatigue, jokingly suggesting the back of Young to wound the wound of Young’s fever by winning the AS during their semifinals match on Indiana fever. Anyway, it will be a full -fledged taste.
Young (10 points) and Wilson (21 points), each seemed a bit spent in the Victory 1 of the Aces, which was the main reason for the dull shooting performance. However, Wilson has also credited Mercury to provide a consistent presence of painting.
“It was as if someone had a foot in painting at any time,” said Wilson. “When it comes to defenses like that, you have to let the offensive develop. We can do a better job to let ours develop a little more because, yes, the first look can be there, but is it the biggest look? I became crazy last night because I felt at the end of the game, I did not make the right decisions.”
Instead of the usual domination of Wilson and Young, the ASs obtained significant increases in the bench of Dana Evans and Jewell Loyd. Evans scored 21 points, including nine in fourth, while Loyd collected 18 points after a first half of 13 points.
– by departure, level media in the field
