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Mercury forward talks about positive impact of coaching staff<\/p>\n
Phoenix Mercury forward Kathryn Westbeld talks about why she feels the Mercury coaching staff is the best she’s experienced in her career.<\/p>\n
When it comes to facing the Atlanta Dream, the Phoenix Mercury have yet to find a solution this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With a chance to move to second place in the WNBA, the Mercury squandered the opportunity, suffering a 74-66 loss on Sunday, Aug. 10 at PHX Arena in the third meeting between the teams this season. At 19-12, the Mercury remain in fourth place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dream\u00a0averaged 92.5 points against the Mercury in the first two meetings. But the lackadaisical start against an athletic and big lineup cost the Mercury once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t come out ready to play. They punched us in the mouth early and it felt like for majority of the game, we were playing from behind,\u201d the Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thomas led Phoenix with 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists, but the rest of the team struggled with making open shots. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury didn\u2019t have any points on the fast break in the first half, missing two attempts. The struggles continued in the second half for the Mercury with six missed fast-break attempts in the game as the Dream outscored the Mercury 9-7 on the fast break.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kahleah Copper and Satou Sabally both took plenty of shots, but didn\u2019t see many land. Sabally shot 3 of 12, while Copper went 3 of 14. Both had to find other ways to contribute, as Sabally grabbed five rebounds and Copper had three assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMentally, physically, we looked tired today,\u201d coach Nate Tibbetts said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even with fatigue, the Mercury dug out of a hole late in the second quarter and used that momentum in the second half. The Dream led by as many as 17 points halfway into the second quarter before Mercury forward Kathryn Westbeld\u2019s 3-pointer started a 15-2 run that ended the second quarter as the Mercury held the Dream to 1 of 9 from the floor. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury started 4-0 in the third quarter and eventually took the lead, but only held onto it for two minutes as the Dream outscored the Mercury 7-2 to finish the third quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get a lot more 50-50 balls than we do and then we just make a lot of mental lapses of reading shooters and panicking when (center)\u00a0Bri Jones has the ball,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s a learning experience and something we need to continue to grow in and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll see them again in the playoffs and we have to be ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dream lost two of their top guards in the second half when Jordin Canada was carried off the court from a non-contact injury with 1:13 left in the third. Canada had 13 points and was 2 of 3 from the 3-point line for Atlanta. Rhyne Howard\u00a0was ejected from the game following a fiery response to a blocking foul against Sabally with 6:11 left in the fourth. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But even without those two guards, small forward Allisha Gray continued to be a tough matchup for the Mercury\u2019s defense, even when they held her in check during the first three quarters. Gray posted 10 points on 3 of 4 shooting in the\u00a0final stretch after\u00a0previously being held to seven points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naz Hillmon recorded a double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds, while Brionna Jones had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds for Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we put up a defensive effort in any games,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cWe came back in this one, but a good defensive effort is 40 minutes and it comes from the moment that ball is thrown up. I don\u2019t think we were ready to play from the beginning, which is unfortunate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
With a healthy squad, the Phoenix is getting closer to figuring out the rotations and finding the best chemistry. Tibbetts said on Aug. 7 that he anticipates an eight-player rotation with his healthy roster. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Against the Dream, Tibbetts had Sami Whitcomb going in for starting point guard Monique Akoa Makani, Westbeld for starting center Natasha Mack and DeWanna Bonner for starting small forward Sabally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Based on the opponents, the rotation could change from game to game, but so far, Tibbetts likes what he has.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThings change. I like what we saw the other night (against the Indiana Fever). Probably not as good as tonight,\u201d Tibbetts said. \u201cIt\u2019s important or players to get in a rhythm. If you look across the league, there\u2019s a lot of teams that play eight. We\u2019ve played more for most of the season because our hand was a little bit forced. I do like the eight-player rotation.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury have four days without a game before hosting the Las Vegas Aces on Aug. 15 at 7 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercury forward talks about positive impact of coaching staff Phoenix Mercury forward Kathryn Westbeld talks about why she…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[82028,1522,4545,4552,5229,5643,5356,1503,1587,1339,2147,26817,2600,26087,82027,2601,66884,20022,82026,160,23300,26399,942,50,450,950,1589,1502,10440,10444,66883,66882,20021,62,1458,4546,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,232,2869,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-136367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-allisha","9":"tag-allisha-gray","10":"tag-alyssa","11":"tag-alyssa-thomas","12":"tag-america","13":"tag-arizona","14":"tag-atlanta","15":"tag-atlanta-dream","16":"tag-az","17":"tag-basketball","18":"tag-canada","19":"tag-copper","20":"tag-dream","21":"tag-gray","22":"tag-jordin","23":"tag-jordin-canada","24":"tag-kahleah","25":"tag-kahleah-copper","26":"tag-mack","27":"tag-mercury","28":"tag-natasha","29":"tag-natasha-mack","30":"tag-neutral","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-neutral","34":"tag-phoenix","35":"tag-phoenix-mercury","36":"tag-prospects","37":"tag-prospects-az","38":"tag-sabally","39":"tag-satou","40":"tag-satou-sabally","41":"tag-sports","42":"tag-sports-news","43":"tag-thomas","44":"tag-united-states","45":"tag-united-states-of-america","46":"tag-unitedstates","47":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","48":"tag-us","49":"tag-usa","50":"tag-wnba","51":"tag-womens","52":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}