{"id":195916,"date":"2025-10-07T21:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T21:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/195916\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T21:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T21:43:07","slug":"mercury-receive-big-boost-ahead-of-wnba-finals-game-3-vs-aces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/195916\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury receive big boost ahead of WNBA Finals Game 3 vs. Aces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercury receive big boost ahead of WNBA Finals Game 3 vs. Aces<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix Mercury ended Game 2 of the WNBA Finals with mounting problems. The elite defense they had flashed in the first two rounds of the playoffs had been decimated by A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young; their reliable bench scoring had disappeared; and the Las Vegas Aces, after rallying to win Game 1, built a 2-0 lead after winning 91-78<\/a> on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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The Mercury fostered further concern over All-Star forward Satou Sabally, who had to leave late on Game 2 after stepping on Wilson’s foot. But fortunately for Phoenix, Sabally has dismissed concerns over a possible right ankle injury; she worked out normally on Tuesday, with no brace, as the Mercury prepare to host their first WNBA Finals game in four years on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0The Mercury need this star to step up against the Aces in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals<\/a><\/p>\n

Sabally scored 22 points in the Game 2 loss, including 10 in the fourth quarter. The Mercury hope that hot final frame translates to Game 3 at Mortgage Matchup Center, which last hosted a WNBA Finals game on Oct. 13, 2021.<\/p>\n

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So far, the Aces have had all the answers for the Mercury’s physical defense, the tone of which is set by the team’s All-Star point forward Alyssa Thomas. Las Vegas’ zone defense slowed down Phoenix dramatically after a strong start to Game 1, and the Mercury shot only 38 percent in the first half of Game 2 while bench contributors DeWanna Bonner (four points in Game 2) and Sami Whitcomb (zero points) struggled to find their rhythm.<\/p>\n

The Mercury are 3-1 at home this postseason; the Aces are just 1-2 on the road. That trend will have to continue if Phoenix is to get back into this series — and a healthy Sabally will be vital to that effort.<\/p>\n

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MORE WNBA NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercury receive big boost ahead of WNBA Finals Game 3 vs. Aces originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4662,4652,49,48,16298,4661,1483,3460,3461,16295,4659,82,25836,630,15457],"class_list":["post-195916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dewanna-bonner","tag-jackie-young","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-sami-whitcomb","tag-satou-sabally","tag-sports","tag-the-mercury","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195916","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=195916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}