{"id":769933,"date":"2026-07-18T08:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769933\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:48:09","slug":"leila-lacan-scores-career-high-26-points-sun-beat-mercury-96-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769933\/","title":{"rendered":"Leila Lacan scores career-high 26 points, Sun beat Mercury 96-83"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Leila Lacan<\/a> scored a career-high 26 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field to lead the Connecticut Sun<\/a> to a 96-83 victory over the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> on Friday night in the first of back-to-back meetings between the teams. <\/p>\n

The Sun (7-18) have won consecutive games for just the second time this season and are 5-3 in their last eight. <\/p>\n

Kennedy Burke<\/a> had 13 points, Brittney Griner<\/a> and Aaliyah Edwards<\/a> scored 12 apiece and Diamond Miller<\/a> added 11 for the Sun.<\/p>\n

Kahleah Copper<\/a> had 21 points to lead the Mercury (8-18), who have lost five straight. Alyssa Thomas<\/a> had 15 points, eight rebounds and six assists, Valeriane Ayayi<\/a> scored 13 points and DeWanna Bonner<\/a> grabbed 10 rebounds to go with eight points. <\/p>\n

Lacan hit a 3-pointer, converted a three-point play and then made a layup that capped an 11-0 run and gave Connecticut a 19-point lead with 4:10 remaining in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

The Mercury were scoreless for nearly four minutes, went without a made field goal for almost five and committed eight of their 13 turnovers in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

Griner, who spent her first 11 WNBA<\/a> seasons with the Mercury, played just her second game in Phoenix since she and the franchise parted ways following the 2024 season.<\/p>\n

Saniya Rivers<\/a> returned from a two-game absence due to a left ankle sprain and had six points in 14 minutes off the bench for the Sun.<\/p>\n

Monique Akoa Makani<\/a> took an incidental elbow from Griner to the face in the opening seconds and went to the locker room briefly. The second-year guard finished scoreless on 0-for-6 shooting.<\/p>\n

Aneesah Morrow<\/a> (reconditioning) missed her fifth consecutive game. <\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

The teams meet again Sunday in Phoenix. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Leila Lacan scored a career-high 26 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field to lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[53534,15447,27040,5550,4384,11649,51109,230413,16802,85478,27038,32476,5551,27041,99,311656,434,13016],"class_list":["post-769933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aaliyah-edwards","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-aneesah-morrow","tag-brittney-griner","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-dewanna-bonner","tag-diamond-miller","tag-event_recap","tag-kahleah-copper","tag-kennedy-burke","tag-leila-lacan","tag-monique-akoa-makani","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-saniya-rivers","tag-sports","tag-valeriane-ayayi","tag-wnba","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769933","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=769933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}