{"id":158699,"date":"2025-08-19T15:26:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T15:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/158699\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:26:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T15:26:20","slug":"wnba-phoenix-mercury-still-have-work-to-do-as-playoff-race-intensifies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/158699\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA: Phoenix Mercury still have work to do as playoff race intensifies"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s still plenty of basketball left in the 2025 WNBA regular season (about four weeks), which is plenty of time for things to shake up in the standings<\/a>. At the moment, just a game and a half separates the Atlanta Dream, who are currently in second place, and the Las Vegas Aces, who are in fifth, so these next few weeks will be critical for playoff-bound teams to make their final pushes for the postseason and get the best seeding possible.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix Mercury are among these teams. Phoenix is currently 20-13 and in fourth place\u2014just a few winning percentage points ahead of the Aces\u2014and though the Mercury have hit a bit of a lull recently, going 5-5 in their last 10 games, they\u2019re approaching a part of their schedule that they should be able to take advantage of.<\/p>\n

Of the Mercury\u2019s 12 remaining games, only one of them (Aug. 30 against the New York Liberty) is against a team currently ahead of Phoenix in the standings. Six are against teams that are below .500, including one game apiece against the Dallas Wings (9-26), Chicago Sky (8-25) and Connecticut Sun (6-27).<\/p>\n

This is the WNBA, and there are no easy wins. But the Mercury\u2019s upcoming schedule looks a lot more forgiving than their recent stretch of games, which included losses to the Dream and Aces and a narrow win over the Seattle Storm (17-18). Head coach Nate Tibbetts has acknowledged<\/a> that his team \u201chasn\u2019t finished the way [they] wanted\u201d against stronger competition and that, even this late in the season, some things are still a work in progress.<\/p>\n

\"Mercury<\/a><\/p>\n

Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts knows that there\u2019s still plenty his team needs to work on. Getty Images<\/p>\n

One such issue, as Tibbetts alluded to, has been closing games. The Mercury\u2019s late-game execution has been lacking against better teams. In their recent loss to Atlanta<\/a>, the Mercury and Dream were tied with five minutes remaining in regulation, but Phoenix was outscored 16-8 the rest of the way. Similarly, against Las Vegas<\/a>, the Mercury kept things within one or two possessions for most of the fourth quarter, but committed a costly turnover out of a timeout on their final possession, quite literally throwing the game away.<\/p>\n

Ideally, the Mercury will have a larger margin for error in the coming weeks. The combined winning percentage of their remaining opponents is .448, which makes for the WNBA\u2019s second-easiest strength of schedule, according to Tankathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Phoenix tries to strengthen their playoff seeding, watch for potential changes in the team\u2019s rotation. Tibbetts mentioned after the Mercury\u2019s win over Seattle that they were \u201cevolving\u201d in how they have been using midseason acquisition DeWanna Bonner, while MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas has been tasked with even more defensive responsibility, occasionally defending opposing centers. This, in turn, has limited the playing time of Phoenix\u2019s traditional bigs: Natasha Mack has played an average of 18.9 minutes in the Mercury\u2019s last five games<\/a>, while Kalani Brown has played 6.1 minutes in just two appearances.<\/p>\n

\"Alyssa<\/a><\/p>\n

Alyssa Thomas has been defending just about every position for the Mercury, from point guard to center. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Are these trends indicative of a long-term change, or will Tibbetts and his staff go a little deeper into their bench against weaker opponents? It\u2019s possible that Phoenix will want to rest players like Thomas, Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper late in the season to reduce the risk of injury and ensure that they\u2019re fresh for the playoffs, but if the Mercury want a top-four playoff seed, chances are they\u2019ll be doing all they can to beat the teams they\u2019re supposed to beat.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s still plenty of basketball left in the 2025 WNBA regular season (about four weeks), which is plenty…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-158699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa","18":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115056134859402353","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158699","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=158699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}