The Phoenix Mercury are going to have to play for something in Game 4, otherwise the Aces are going back to Las Vegas riding on brooms.
“It’s pride, for me,” Mercury guard Kahleah Copper said at Mortgage Matchup Center in downtown Phoenix after a 90-88 loss in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals.
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The Mercury are down 0-3, but Copper isn’t interested in getting swept.
“Hell no,” Copper said. “That’s who I am as a player. That’s who I am as a person. I’m a competitor. That’s just what it is.”
Copper said that’s the sentiment throughout the Phoenix locker room. It had better be because this series looks done.
“I don’t know how many teams have come back from 0-3,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “Not many. I’m not gonna sugarcoat that.”
Only five times in major North American sports history has a team come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a best-of-seven series. Once in baseball. Four times in hockey.
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Never in the NBA or WNBA. (Of course, this is the first best-of-seven series in WNBA history, so maybe it’s not that tough to do in the W?)
It looks like Phoenix is going to have to get it done without Satou Sabally. The Unicorn went out in the fourth quarter after falling and banging her head into an opponent’s leg. She was helped off the court like a boxer who had just been knocked out.
The whole team looks like that after going through the toughest playoff gauntlet since Thanos tried to join the Golden State Warriors. (And if A’ja Wilson snaps, it’s over for Phoenix.)
First came the New York Liberty, a loaded team that won the title last year behind Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu.
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Then it was last year’s runner-up, Minnesota, the best team in the league most of the year thanks to Napheesa Collier.
Now? The Aces and four-time MVP A’ja Wilson? They won the title two years ago — and three years ago.
Phoenix is just out of heat.
Not that DeWanna Bonner would ever admit that.
“It’s the Finals,” Bonner said. “There’s no wear and tear, you’ve just got to keep fighting … we just can’t start that way, not against them.”
Bonner came off the bench and led Phoenix with 25 points. But Phoenix is in trouble if Bonner is the leading scorer on a team with Sabally, Copper and Alyssa Thomas.
Anyway, the first half was abysmal.
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Just a few minutes after Alyssa Thomas was recognized for making her third WNBA all-defensive team, Las Vegas went neon.
The Aces scored 55 first-half points, the most allowed by the Mercury in any half this postseason.
Las Vegas also hit nine 3-pointers in the first half, including one by A’ja Wilson.
Wilson finished with 34 points, none bigger than the game-winner with three-tenths of a second left on the game clock. Bonner and Thomas were trying to smother her, but the 6-4, four-time MVP just leaned back and hit a fadeaway jumper to secure the win.
“A’ja made a tough shot,” Copper said. “She’s a great player.”
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Copper’s a great player, too. She was the 2021 Finals MVP. But she didn’t look like it through three quarters. She had just six points on 3-for-10 shooting, including 0-for-3 from 3-point range.
“It was almost like they played a box-and-1 against her early,” Tibbetts said.
(A pro team running a box-and-1? Gross.)
But late in the fourth, with about 4:30 on the clock and Phoenix trailing by 10, Copper triggered a rally that almost became a 17-point comeback — the kind of comeback that would make a boomerang look like a stick.
Copper went on an 11-point rampage. Two free throws. A layup. A free throw. A steal. A layup. A free throw. A 3-pointer!
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She drew Phoenix to within a point, 84-83.
But the Mercury couldn’t finish, and the Aces are up 3-0.
“It’s tough right now,” Copper said after scoring 17 points despite the slow start. “Our backs are against the wall right now.”
It looks like it’s over.
Before we can even start thinking about a 0-3 comeback, the Mercury are going to have to play for something, just to prevent the legacy stain of a sweep.
Copper says it’s pride, here’s hoping a prideful win comes before the Mercury fall.
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore, Instagram, @SayingMoore, and TikTok, @SayingMoore.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ‘Hell no,” Kahleah Copper says Mercury aren’t getting swept
