After upsetting the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, the Mercury have seemingly run into a wall against the Las Vegas Aces. After losing Game 1 by three points, they also lost Game 2 by 13 after true star-level performances from A\u2019ja Wilson and Jackie Young.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Game 2, Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts pointed to one usually strong aspect of his team\u2019s game that hasn\u2019t shown up in the finals yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here because of our defense, and to give up 89 points in Game 1 and 91 in Game 2\u2026We have to be better at the defensive end,\u201d Tibbetts told reporters<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phoenix is usually a good defensive team<\/p>\n Phoenix finished the regular season with the fifth-best defensive rating in the league. With a rating of 100.4, they only trailed the Lynx, Dream, Valkyries, and Storm. In the playoffs, they took their defense to another level.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Mercury\u2019s defense bothered the Liberty in the first round. New York never scored more than 76 points, and Nate Tibbetts especially shouted out Monique Akoa Makani for defending Sabrina Ionescu <\/a>well. That same defense also rattled the usually sound Minnesota Lynx. They never scored more than 82 points, and the Mercury kept them below 40% shooting from three in the last three games. Twice, the Lynx didn\u2019t even shoot 35% from three.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alyssa Thomas, the team\u2019s MVP candidate, is one big reason for the Mercury\u2019s defensive success. She is one of the most versatile two-way players in the league. Kahleah Copper and Monique Akoa Makani are both strong perimeter defenders, and DeWanna Bonner and Satou Sabally offer great size on the wing.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Mercury\u2019s defense hasn\u2019t been as strong against the Aces<\/p>\n Phoenix gave up 89 and 91 points to the Aces, marking the most points it allowed any team to score during the playoffs. In Game 1, the Mercury struggled to guard Dana Evans and let Jewell Loyd go 8-16 from the field. In the next game, they had no answer for Jackie Young and Alyssa Thomas got into foul trouble early, leaving the Mercury with no good answer against A\u2019ja Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Game 3 is a must-win situation for the Mercury. They cannot let the Aces go up 3-0 on the road. So, expect the Mercury to come out swinging and with the right energy to get the defense back on track. This team has battled its way back from deficits<\/a>\u2014whether in a series or in a game\u2014before, and the defensive talent to turn this series around is certainly there.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After upsetting the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, the Mercury have seemingly run into a wall against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-206538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}