The Phoenix Mercury seek consecutive wins for the first time this season as they welcome the Seattle Storm on Tuesday in a Commissioner’s Cup game.
Phoenix (2-5) snapped a three-game losing skid on Sunday, rallying from down eight points at the start of the fourth quarter in an 85-82 road win over the Indiana Fever. All five Mercury starters scored in double figures, led by Britney Griner with 29 points.
Phoenix also got 18 points, seven assists and six rebounds from veteran Diana Taurasi, who was playing on her 41st birthday.
“Great, great team effort,” Mercury head coach Vanessa Nygaard told the team after the victory. “We had our backs against the wall, had people out, we’re on the road, all those things, y’all stepped up.”
The Mercury were without Moriah Jefferson, who was limited to six minutes with an ankle injury in Friday’s loss to Dallas. She is listed as questionable for Tuesday.
Seattle (1-6) limps into Phoenix having lost its last two after it snapped a season-opening, four-game skid.
The Storm beat the Los Angeles Sparks 66-63 last Tuesday, showing a grind-it-out defense in a comeback victory. The win kicked off a three-game stretch in which Seattle has not allowed more than 73 points — however, the Storm have the WNBA’s lowest-scoring offense and failed to produce more than 66 in any of the three.
That resulted in 73-66 and 71-65 losses to the Washington Mystics on Friday and Sunday, respectively. The losses marked the Storm’s fourth and fifth single-digit defeats of the season.
“We just haven’t been in these moments enough as a unit to know just taking care of the ball and how we need to execute and just kind of be sharper,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. “But this is the growth that is happening, will happen, needs to happen for us to get over the hump.”
Jewell Loyd has done her part to bolster Seattle’s league-low 73.6-points-per-game output, averaging a WNBA-high 26.0 points per contest. After Ezi Magbegor’s 14.0 ppg average, however, no other Storm player is producing more than 7.1 points a contest.
Seattle played Friday’s contest without Loyd due to a foot injury. She returned to the lineup on Sunday and scored 16 points, leading four Storm scorers in double figures.
–Field Level Media