‘Back to the drawing board’: Why the Phoenix Mercury fell short in Game 1 of WNBA Finals

Phoenix carried a 4-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, but it had held a 9-point lead late in the third quarter, its largest of the game. Las Vegas capitalized on being within striking distance by winning the fourth quarter 22-15 to come away with the 89-86 victory.

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WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and reserve guard Dana Evans each had 21 points for Las Vegas. Most of those points came when it mattered most: 12 of Wilson’s points came in the final 14 minutes, and Evans made two 3-pointers in a row to give the Aces their first lead of the fourth quarter.

“I’ve said multiple times that Dana is our battery,” Wilson told reporters postgame. “She makes us play at a different pace. I told her we go as she goes, and that’s a quick pace. We’re gonna always try to follow her, because we know she’s very hard to stop in this league, very hard to keep in front of.”

Related content: Live from the WNBA Finals: How the bench helped the Las Vegas Aces take Game 1

Las Vegas’ defensive adjustment

For Phoenix, guard Kahleah Copper had 21 points, including 19 in the first half. She shot 5-for-6 from 3-point range and sparked a run that saw Phoenix go up by 8 about a minute before halftime. However, Las Vegas’ defense adjusted in the second half, throwing a zone at the Mercury offense that proved to be difficult to navigate.

“[The zone] kind of made us stand a little bit,” Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts told reporters postgame. “I thought we had some good looks. Give them credit for mixing up their defense — that was a good adjustment. We didn’t handle it well, and that was part of the reason [Copper] didn’t get as many shots in the second half.”

Aces head coach Becky Hammon added in her postgame presser, “I thought them getting the ball in the paint, whether it was off the pass or penetration, was really hurting us. It was putting us very vulnerable on the backside with those threes. So [we] just tried something different to where maybe we didn’t give up the middle so easily. We were able to fan out a little bit better and find those shooters.”

Las Vegas’ zone didn’t just affect Copper. It bothered Phoenix star forward Alyssa Thomas as well. Despite finishing with a near triple-double (15 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists), Thomas only had 5 second-half points. She also missed three of her four free-throw attempts in the fourth quarter.

Thomas has dominated as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll, but Las Vegas’ zone neutralized that advantage. Specifically, it didn’t allow Phoenix to pick on Evans, who is just 5’6, using Thomas’ strong frame.

“It also allowed us to protect Dana a little bit [in] the zone, so that they couldn’t put her in all the actions,” Hammon said. “We knew they were going to; we had talked about it. … I still feel like we can do some of our base stuff a little bit better, especially in the post.”

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Late-game fumble

Despite the Aces’ fourth-quarter scoring outburst and defensive adjustments, Phoenix still had a great chance to win the game. Down by 1 point with 30 seconds remaining, Thomas swiped the ball from Wilson and took it the length of the court, getting fouled on a fast-break layup. However, she missed both free throws that would’ve given the Mercury the lead. That forced them to play the foul game.

After Aces guard Jackie Young made both of her free throws, Phoenix was down by just 3 with a chance to send the game to overtime. With 13 seconds remaining, Tibbetts’ play out of a timeout fell apart, leading to a highly contested 3-point attempt from forward Satou Sabally that missed to the right.

“We ran a play to get [Copper] a look,” Tibbetts said. “They did a good job of switching out, and then we had one more option off of that. I probably should have ran out and called another timeout with about six seconds to go.”

Sabally shot the ball well throughout the game despite the last-second miss. After struggling in Game 1 of Phoenix’s past two series, she scored 19 points on 50% shooting on Friday, including three 3-pointers.

“I’m really not too down on myself,” Sabally told reporters postgame. “We go back. We’ll practice tomorrow, we’ll walk through our mistakes and find better solutions for some things, and then we’ll just come back on Sunday and win this game.”

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Familiar territory

Game 2 is on Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Both teams will again have to lean on the quick adjustments that have defined their playoff runs. Phoenix will try to tie the series at 1-1, while Las Vegas has the chance to seize a commanding 2-0 lead in the first seven-game series in WNBA history.

For the Mercury, losing Game 1 is nothing new. In both of their previous series in this postseason, they dropped the opener but bounced back with commanding performances.

“We’ve been down after the first game,” Tibbetts said. “… You always want to try to get one early, and we put ourselves in a position to do so. These are two of the best teams; that’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 added, “This is a long series. I think the takeaway from those other first ones was the mindset [of going] 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.”

The underdog mindset has carried the Mercury this far, and it will once again be their rallying cry. With both Tibbetts and Hammon well-versed in the seven-game format from their days as NBA assistant coaches, every move and counter will matter. Sunday will be the next battle in their duel.

The Next’s Jackie Powell and Kelly Johnson contributed reporting for this story.