{"id":183942,"date":"2025-08-29T05:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183942\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T05:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:08:15","slug":"sky-stumble-in-second-quarter-fall-short-in-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183942\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky stumble in second quarter, fall short in Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 The deciding play came with 23 seconds left. The Mercury led by two when Alyssa Thomas dribbled at the top of the key, surveying. She attacked left, spun back right after Angel Reese cut her off, then hung in the air and floated in a layup off the glass to make it 81-77.<\/p>\n

Reese answered quickly with a basket and a chance at an and-one, but she missed the free throw. The Mercury secured the rebound and escaped with the win.<\/p>\n

It was another close finish that didn\u2019t go the Sky\u2019s way, despite mostly sharp execution late. Afterward, players and head coach Tyler Marsh pointed to the second quarter as the turning point.<\/p>\n

The Sky<\/a> jumped out to a big lead in the first, but managed only eight points in the second. Turnovers piled up, and former Sky star Kahleah Copper punished them with 10 points in the quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sometimes we get comfortable,\u201d Reese said. \u201cWhen you get comfortable with a good team, they\u2019ll bust your a\u2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mercury improved to 24-14, currently fourth place in the standings. But not before Reese collected her 21st double-double of the season \u2014 one more than Thomas, who she took pride in holding below her usual standard.<\/a><\/p>\n

Guard Kia Nurse also helped keep the Sky alive, hitting 5-of-7 from three and finishing with 17 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 The deciding play came with 23 seconds left. The Mercury led by two when Alyssa Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":183943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-183942","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183942","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=183942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}