There’s no place like home when competing for a title.
After the Phoenix Mercury’s 80-63 home win over the New York Liberty on Saturday, Aug. 30, Kahleah Copper was direct when asked about the importance of playoff home court advantage.
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“When you play for the Phoenix Mercury it matters,” said Copper, who scored a game-highs 22 points, including five 3s). “I think the X-Factor (fans) is a part of everything that we do. They’re special so for us, it matters. Maybe not for the other teams, but for us it matters.”
The sellout crowds at PHX Arena this season have helped the Mercury (25-14) achieve a 14-6 home record, putting them on pace for their best home winning percentage since 2015 (13-4, .765).
Former Mercury coach Corey Gaines, who attended the Phoenix-New York game, told The Arizona Republic that home-court advantage didn’t matter as much in the Mercury’s first title win in 2007.
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“It’s important but not that important because the first championship that we won, we didn’t have homecourt advantage to win the championship,” Gaines said. “We won it in Detroit, so it’s not really important. For the fans, it’s important, but for the team it’s not. That was the first time that a team who didn’t have homecourt advantage won. They didn’t even have a room for us to celebrate because it never happened before.”
The Mercury were the playoffs’ top seed in their two other title wins in 2009 and 2014. Chicago was the No. 2 seed over the No. 3 Mercury in the 2021 finals. There’s a 74.2% winning percentage for teams with homecourt advantage to win the title, accounting for just eight of the 29 total champions that have not.
The Mercury clinched a playoff spot on Aug. 29, after No. 3 Atlanta defeated Dallas. The Mercury’s fourth straight victory on Aug. 30 helped them remain in sole possession of the No. 4 spot in the standings. Phoenix won the season series over the defending champion Liberty (24-16), going 3-1. New York, which was in fifth place after Saturday’s game, is a potential first-round matchup for Phoenix.
The top eight teams in the overall league standings make the playoffs. The first four will have home-court advantage in the opening round.
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“I don’t think we’re satisfied,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “We can’t be, there’s going to still be movement in the standings. Obviously, we’re happy for tonight. We haven’t had one of these big wins in a while. With what was at stake with the standings, it was a big win just to get that tiebreaker against them. You can’t get too high in this league. There’s a good chance we see New York in the first round, so it is what it is.”
Minnesota (31-8) has stood atop the standings all season. The league’s hottest team Las Vegas (26-14) has matched its franchise record 12 straight wins as of Sunday for second, while the Atlanta Dream, which won the season series over Phoenix, was in third with the same record as the Mercury, 25-14.
Both the Mercury and Liberty resume play Sept. 2, with Phoenix having five games left and New York four.
“We need these games,” Tibbetts said. “We need to go through good times and tough times. It’s part of learning how to be a good team. We’ve got five more to go, and all of those are going to matter just as much as this one. We can’t take a deep breath. We’ve still got work to do, and we need these games, we do, because we need reps as a unit to find our way.”
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The Mercury host Indiana on Sept. 2, a team they defeated by 35 points when they last met Aug. 7, as Indiana was without star guard Caitlin Clark.
Phoenix has the second-weakest schedule to close the season and New York is right above them at 11th weakest, per Tankathon.
Three of the Mercury’s final five games are on the road, against Washington and Connecticut on Sept. 4 and 6, and Dallas on Sept. 11. They play Los Angeles Sept. 9 in their final home game.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mercury gain momentum toward playoff homecourt advantage
