LAS VEGAS \u2014 The Phoenix Mercury led Game 1 of the WNBA Finals for more than two-thirds of the game, but couldn\u2019t finish what they started in their\u00a089-86 loss to the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n
The Mercury were ahead for more than 27 minutes Friday and their biggest lead was nine points after Monique Akoa Makani hit three consecutive free throws to give them a 66-57 advantage with 3:36 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Phoenix\u2019s last lead was 82-80 with a little less than 5 minutes left in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made a couple plays down the stretch we didn\u2019t,\u201d Phoenix coach Nate Tibbets said. \u201cThat\u2019s why this is going to be a great series, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
It could be, if the Mercury don\u2019t make the same mistakes Sunday (Sportsnet ONE, 3 p.m. ET\/ noon PT) in Game 2 under the pressure of a raucous arena that had a sellout crowd of 10,266 reach peak decibels on Friday.<\/p>\n
Phoenix committed 12 turnovers, to Las Vegas\u2019 five, and the Aces capitalized with 20 points off the Mercury\u2019s miscues.<\/p>\n
Kahleah Copper finished with 21 points, but 19 of those came in the first half. The Aces\u2019 defensive switches limited Copper\u2019s looks to just four attempts in the second half, when she scored only two points and had one assist.<\/p>\n
The Mercury went from shooting 52.9 per cent (18 of 34) in the first half to 40.6% in the second half, with nearly the same amount of looks, hitting 13 of 32.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went zone, kind of made us stand a little bit,\u201d Tibbetts added. \u201cI thought we had some good looks. Give them credit for mixing up their defence; that was a good adjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t handle it well, and that was part of the reason (Copper) didn\u2019t get as many shots in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tibbetts said it\u2019s a series that could very well see games come down to the last possession, situations he feels his team has handled well, despite star\u00a0Alyssa Thomas missing a pair of free throws\u00a0that could have given Phoenix the lead with 24.6 seconds left in the game.<\/p>\n
Thomas had an injury scare late in the game with her left hand, but said Saturday it was fine and not an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201dWe don’t need to talk about that,\u201d said Thomas, who had 15 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in Game 1.<\/p>\n
Finally, there\u2019s Phoenix\u2019s defence, which held teams to 75.9 points per game on 41.1 per cent shooting through its first seven playoff games, but allowed the Aces to score 89 points and shoot 45.8 per cent in the series opener \u2014 both opponent highs against the Mercury in the playoffs.\u00a0Las Vegas’ bench also outscored Phoenix’s, 41-16.<\/p>\n
Satou Sabally, who had 19 points on Friday, remained confident in Phoenix\u2019s resiliency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to play better defence, just go back to what we do best, and then I think the results will show that we are the better team,\u201d Sabally said. \u201cWe\u2019ll walk through our mistakes and find better solutions for some things, and then we\u2019ll just come back on Sunday and win this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 The Phoenix Mercury led Game 1 of the WNBA Finals for more than two-thirds of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-190225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}