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MINNEAPOLIS — Perhaps it was the games of UNO on the long plane rides around the country that made the difference as the Phoenix Mercury beat the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday night in Game 2 of the WNBA semifinals. Phoenix came back from being down 20 points to win 89-83 in overtime, which tied it for the third-largest comeback in WNBA postseason history and tied this series.
It was the kind of win that called for chemistry and unselfishness, two things the Mercury have in spades, however unlikely.
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Phoenix’s core came together only this past offseason when the team signed Alyssa Thomas and traded for Satou Sabally, so the Mercury’s veterans had to be intentional about creating a bond that could help them compete with teams that had established cores, like the New York Liberty squad they dispatched in the first round. Because of the league’s geography, the Mercury’s flights are long. They used that time to jell as a group — using the game UNO.
Kahleah Copper said she is the team’s wins leader, but Thomas won the most recent games.
“I think it’s just spending time together outside the court. I think we don’t take our plane rides for granted, spend some time, play some games. I think that’s what you want to do with a group that has just come together,” Copper told Yahoo Sports. “Then the court, it’s just about communicating, over-communicating to each other, and then we’re just kind of figuring it out.”
That team chemistry was evident in their historic comeback Tuesday night. In the first half, Minnesota appeared to be on its way to a fourth consecutive playoff win. The Lynx were shooting 50 percent, with three players already in double digits.
But Phoenix head coach Nate Tibbetts turned up the heat on his team at halftime, and the Mercury responded. His players declined to say exactly what Tibbetts’ message was, but it was a moment of accountability for a team that came into the postseason as the fourth seed after putting together a regular-season record of 27-17.
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Perhaps, then, the game really turned on a blood timeout in the third quarter. Both Thomas and the basketball needed to be cleaned up, and the officials took their time to ensure the game was safe to continue. The momentum started to swing after that break in the action, and the Mercury credited forward Kathryn Westbeld in helping lead that charge.
“Kat was huge for us. Kat came in and gave us incredible minutes. She had huge shots,” Sami Whitcomb said. “And I feel like that, really, we all lifted. We lifted defensively. We got stops. I think at one point we cut it with her on the floor. We cut it to about six or eight, and that, to me, was the moment where it was like, ‘All right, like this, like we’re on here, and we’ve got this.’”
Westbeld, a 29-year-old rookie who has spent her career playing overseas, finished with 8 points, 4 rebounds and 4 steals, and was part of a bench effort that turned in 25 points for Phoenix. Whitcomb had 13, including the clutch 3-pointer to tie the game at the end of the fourth quarter.
Minnesota, who came into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed after dominating the regular season, had no real answer for Phoenix down the stretch. Its play in the second half was sloppy, with uncharacteristic mistakes that amounted to 10 turnovers and a lost battle on the offensive boards.
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“I think the lack of execution led us to the uncertainty, and all of a sudden we’re looking around, and had a bunch of ‘Oh, s*** looks.’ Execution, simple things, pass and catch, and just being able to dribble the ball off the court and we’re throwing it out of bounds,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “Phoenix certainly was a part defensively. I can show you four times right now in a minute and a half, [errors] that had nothing to do with Phoenix, and so that made us out of sorts.”
The Lynx lost only 10 games in the regular season, losing two consecutive games just once during a stretch in August when superstar Napheesa Collier was out with an ankle injury. If they’re going to steal a win or two in Phoenix, the Lynx have to not only execute better, but lean on more than just the starters, who scored all but three of their points Tuesday night. Minnesota also made only 7 of 28 attempts from beyond the arc.
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Phoenix, meanwhile, gained some serious momentum in the series as it heads home for Games 3 and 4. The Mercury will need to draw on that chemistry and let their core of Thomas, Copper and Sabally — who tied Collier for a game-high 24 points — shine. Thomas’ competitiveness showed up in every aspect of Tuesday’s win; she even found herself nose to nose with Collier late in the game after Collier fouled Thomas.
Thomas said it wasn’t important what was said between the two MVP candidates, but her competitive fire fuels the Mercury on the court, just as it does during those team-building card games on cross-country flights. If you ask her, Thomas is the UNO champion of the team. And after 52 career playoff games and counting, Thomas wants to be a WNBA champion. Game 3 is Friday night.
