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A\u2019ja Wilson captures record fourth MVP award<\/p>\n
Las Vegas Aces star A\u2019ja Wilson has been named the WNBA\u2019s Most Valuable Player for a record fourth time in her career.<\/p>\n
unbranded – Sport<\/p>\n
MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 The Phoenix Mercury are down 0-1 in the best-of-five WNBA semifinal series against the Minnesota Lynx.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coming off short rest from the first-round series, the Mercury didn\u2019t show any fatigue in the first half, attacking the paint and posting an astounding 42 points from inside. But the Lynx made the right adjustments in the second half to outscore the Mercury by 20 points and allow just 12 paint points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now with both teams getting the same amount of rest for Game 2, the Mercury have a clean slate on Tuesday, Sept. 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what they need to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Find other options\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alyssa Thomas is an MVP finalist for a reason. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury have been masterful at inverting the ball screen and putting their opponent\u2019s smallest player on Thomas. \u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of that play was seen in the first half of Game 1 when Thomas dominated with 16 points on eight of her 14 shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her role as the Mercury\u2019s point forward has put them in this position in the semifinals. \u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the Mercury\u2019s reliance on pushing the offense through Thomas didn\u2019t seem to work in the second half when the Lynx double-teamed her on seven touches. While being double-teamed, Thomas missed her only shot attempt and had one turnover. Phoenix didn\u2019t score on those touches either.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kahleah Copper ended up shouldering the load in the second half, taking 16 shots and posting 11 points. The rest of the Big 3 of\u00a0Thomas and Satou Sabally had eight combined shots, with Sabally missing all five attempts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What worked in the first half didn\u2019t work in the second half, and the Mercury needed more people involved. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Going back to their roots\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury began the season with some of the best 3-point shooting performances in team history. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The long-range shooting continued in the playoffs as the Mercury averaged 7.3 3-pointers in the three games. But against the Lynx, the shots didn\u2019t fall, and the Mercury shot a postseason low of 3 of 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each team\u2019s defense is different, but when the Lynx clogged up the lane in the second half, the Mercury had opportunities to let it fly. Copper and Sami Whitcomb were the only two players to make a 3-pointer on\u00a015 attempts in the second half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mercury missed out with rookie guard Monique Akoa Makani having a quieter game. Akoa Makani went down with a non-contact injury early in the third quarter and looked to be limping before she was taken off the floor. When she returned to action, she took three shots but didn\u2019t make any of them. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Akoa Makani was one of the best rookie 3-point shooters in the WNBA, but has only made one attempt so far. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Be ready for the pace\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lynx made the second half look like a track meet, and the Mercury\u00a0struggled to keep up. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtney Williams will continue to be a problem for the Mercury as she\u2019s one of the fastest and most active guards in the league. Williams did a number on Phoenix with five steals, including three in the second half. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Coach Nate Tibbetts said that fatigue didn\u2019t play a factor in the second-half performance, but the Lynx were able to find a pace that the Mercury couldn\u2019t match. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though the offense has improved\u00a0in the playoffs, the Mercury still had trouble turning the ball over and went from two turnovers in the first half to eight in the second.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Game 2 will be on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 4:30 p.m. MT\u00a0on ESPN.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u2019ja Wilson captures record fourth MVP award Las Vegas Aces star A\u2019ja Wilson has been named the WNBA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":247106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[691,4545,4552,5229,5643,1587,1339,26817,49566,5616,2488,337,2487,66884,20022,5967,160,3663,1519,644,663,635,7233,50,642,450,1457,1589,1502,1451,66883,66882,20021,62,1458,645,2490,4546,639,662,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7223,643,2612,232,2869,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-247105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alyssa","10":"tag-alyssa-thomas","11":"tag-america","12":"tag-arizona","13":"tag-az","14":"tag-basketball","15":"tag-copper","16":"tag-courtney","17":"tag-courtney-williams","18":"tag-enabled","19":"tag-explainer","20":"tag-highlights","21":"tag-kahleah","22":"tag-kahleah-copper","23":"tag-lynx","24":"tag-mercury","25":"tag-minnesota","26":"tag-minnesota-lynx","27":"tag-modular","28":"tag-modular-story","29":"tag-new","30":"tag-new-visitors-az","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-not","33":"tag-overall","34":"tag-overall-positive","35":"tag-phoenix","36":"tag-phoenix-mercury","37":"tag-positive","38":"tag-sabally","39":"tag-satou","40":"tag-satou-sabally","41":"tag-sports","42":"tag-sports-news","43":"tag-story","44":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","45":"tag-thomas","46":"tag-ttp","47":"tag-ttp-explainer-not-visual","48":"tag-united-states","49":"tag-united-states-of-america","50":"tag-unitedstates","51":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","52":"tag-us","53":"tag-usa","54":"tag-visitors","55":"tag-visual","56":"tag-williams","57":"tag-wnba","58":"tag-womens","59":"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\/247105","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=247105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}