{"id":857603,"date":"2026-09-23T09:20:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T09:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857603\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T09:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T09:20:19","slug":"phoenix-hosts-las-vegas-following-coppers-31-point-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857603\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix hosts Las Vegas following Copper’s 31-point game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Las Vegas Aces<\/a> (30-13, 16-6 Western Conference) at Phoenix Mercury<\/a> (16-27, 10-12 Western Conference)<\/p>\n

Phoenix; Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: Phoenix Mercury hosts the Las Vegas Aces after Kahleah Copper<\/a> scored 31 points in the Phoenix Mercury’s 87-86 victory over the Dallas Wings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Mercury have gone 10-12 against Western Conference opponents. Phoenix ranks sixth in the Western Conference with 20.3 assists per game led by Alyssa Thomas<\/a> averaging 8.5.<\/p>\n

The Aces are 16-6 in Western Conference play. Las Vegas has a 3-2 record in games decided by less than 4 points.<\/p>\n

Phoenix scores 84.4 points per game, 1.5 fewer points than the 85.9 Las Vegas allows. Las Vegas has shot at a 48.4% rate from the field this season, 2.3 percentage points higher than the 46.1% shooting opponents of Phoenix have averaged.<\/p>\n

The two teams match up for the fourth time this season. The Aces defeated the Mercury 106-58 in their last matchup on July 11. A’ja Wilson led the Aces with 21 points, and Lexi Held<\/a> led the Mercury with 11 points.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Thomas is scoring 14.5 points per game with 7.8 rebounds and 8.5 assists for the Mercury. Copper is averaging 17.5 points over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

Wilson is averaging 26 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and two blocks for the Aces. Jackie Young<\/a> is averaging 22.9 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Mercury: 4-6, averaging 86.4 points, 32.6 rebounds, 21.7 assists, 7.7 steals and 4.1 blocks per game while shooting 45.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 87.6 points per game.<\/p>\n

Aces: 8-2, averaging 92.1 points, 32.1 rebounds, 20.9 assists, 7.9 steals and 4.7 blocks per game while shooting 47.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 80.3 points.<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Mercury: Kelsey Plum<\/a>: out for season (leg).<\/p>\n

Aces: Janiah Barker: out for season (leg), NaLyssa Smith: out for season (leg).<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Aces (30-13, 16-6 Western Conference) at Phoenix Mercury (16-27, 10-12 Western Conference) Phoenix; Thursday, 10 p.m.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[15447,230765,7638,16802,10504,4677,16803,5551,99,434,13016],"class_list":["post-857603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-event_preview","tag-jackie-young","tag-kahleah-copper","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-lexi-held","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857603","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=857603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}