Satou Sabally perhaps landed on the salient point immediately after the Phoenix Mercury’s dominance over the New York Liberty on Wednesday.
“I would say Game 1 was different. This was nothing different,” Sabally said of the difference in her shooting from Game 1 (2-of-17) at home to Game 2 (5-of-11) on the road.
The same can be said for the Mercury in total. They were 3-1 over the Liberty in the regular season and a missed layup shy of winning Game 1 on Sunday.
Certainly, the Liberty weren’t the same in Game 2 with star forward Breanna Stewart gutting out 20 minutes on a sprained knee. She was down from 18 points in 39 minutes during Game 1 to six points.
The Mercury, though, have been better than the WNBA defending champions head-to-head throughout this season and after an 86-60 Game 2 win should be favored Friday in a first round series-deciding Game 3.
The winner of Game 3 at PHX Arena meets regular-season champion Minnesota in a best-of-5 semifinal series starting Sunday. The Lynx rallied Wednesday to win 75-74 at Golden State for a two-game sweep of the expansion Valkyries
In Game 2, the Mercury improved to 14-0 when five players score in double figures. Significantly, Alyssa Thomas, Sabally and Kahleah Cooper combined for 44 points, one of the most balanced big-three showings of the season.
Sabally scored the first seven points of the second quarter for the Mercury, who had a 15-0 run later in the second to transform a tie game after the first into a 51-37 lead.
The Liberty never led after 21-19 in the first quarter and trailed by as many as 31 in the fourth.
The Mercury’s regular-season margins over the Liberty were 89-81 on June 19, 106-91 on June 27 and 80-63 on Aug. 30. Not at large as Wednesday but a trend nonetheless that gave players confidence they could recover from an overtime loss in Game 1 when 32.5 percent shooting derailed solid defensive play.
“We did another good job of just competing at a high level,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said after Game 2. “The second quarter, we didn’t give them those second-chance points, which hurt us in the first. I just loved our focus and determination.”
The Mercury found an answer in Game 2 for Natasha Cloud, who dipped from 23 points in Game 1 to eight, and led in rebounding 39-36 after being crushed 48-31 on the boards in Game 1.
They led 10-5 in steals, 25-7 in points off turnovers, 20-2 in fast-break points and 38-22 in paint points, about as commanding as is realistically possible in a No. 4-5 playoff seeding series typically decided by thin margins.
The expectation, then, is that Game 3 will be closer to the norm depending in part of Stewart’s health and if the Liberty’s confidence wasn’t shattered in Game 2, which seems unlikely for a team with championship pedigree.
Since neither home team has won in the series, home court advantage is only a plus, not a panacea. Liberty coach Sandy Brondello has been down this road before including with the Mercury in 2021 when the Mercury needed a deciding Game 5 road win over Las Vegas to reach the WNBA Finals.
Since 2007, the Mercury have been among the final four teams standing in the WNBA playoffs 11 times, three of those as champions. They are one win shy of reaching that level again for the first time since 2021.
Tibbetts rested regulars over the final three regular-season games, all losses to non-playoff teams, with hopes it would pay off in the postseason.
“As a coach, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Tibbetts said before Game 1 vs. the Liberty. “There was a decision to be made, to see big picture and rest and play less minutes or keep playing. We decided to rest some people. You never really know for sure what the right answer is. I don’t think it’s just physically for the players, it’s also mentally.”
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