I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase, “revenge is a dish best served cold.” After Seattle came to Phoenix and beat the Mercury on their home floor on Father’s Day, the Mercury look to return the favor tonight.

Trust me, the Mercury are motivated, rejuvenated, and on a mission to exact that revenge against the Storm tonight.

Game Preview

In their first meeting, other than rebounds (37-22) and points in the paint (42-26), what really killed the Mercury was Sue Bird’s phenomenal start to the 4th scoring the first 7 points of the quarter off pick & roll jump shots.

“She [Sue] was just hitting those shots, and she wasn’t hitting them before,” Gaines said about Sue’s scoring burst. “Had she not hit those we probably would’ve won the game.”

We all know that the pick & roll is one of the most difficult plays to defend in basketball. So, how do the Mercury defend it? Do they go under the screen? Over the screen? Does it depend on the situation? “It depends on the player, it depends on how the player is playing, it depends on the weather outside, the moon alignment, ” Gaines said jokingly. “It’s true. It’s an extremely difficult play to defend. If the person is off, it’s real easy. If they’re on, you’re in a tough position.”

Gaines makes a great point here. Sometimes it has nothing to do with how you defend the pick & roll, sometimes the other team just simply cannot miss no matter how well you defend it. Other times, you might defend it poorly but the offense just isn’t able to convert that into points. It’s really a guessing game.

To beat the Storm, the Mercury will simply need to do what they do better than anyone else in the league - score.

“Think about it, they’re known as the best defensive team and we’re known as the best offensive team,” Gaines said. “Our weaknesses are rebounding and theirs are probably getting back in transition. It’s kind of funny of things work. At the end of the day, you gotta play the game.”

If the Mercury push the ball and limit the rebounding and points in the paint gap, they should have a good chance to win. On the other hand, if they have another off shooting night and are unable to defend Bird, Jackson, and Cash it could be another long night.

Key Player: Diana Taurasi

Earlier in the year, when the Mercury lost to Sacramento on the road, Dee had just 11 points on 5-12 shooting. The next night, back at home, Taurasi responded with a season-high 31 points in a 115-104 victory.  Gaines said that night that he’s never seen Taurasi have 2 bad games in a row.

With a 2-15 performance against the Lynx on Saturday, does that bode well for the Mercury tonight? “She’s ready, she’s focused,” Gaines told me. “We had a great few days of practice and she’ll be ready to go.”

Revenge

I had the chance to catch up with a few players today on their thoughts regarding the game. Specifically, I wanted to know if they treated this game with more emphasis and significance than others the log-jam at the top of the West, or if it’s viewed simply as game #11 on their schedule.

• Le’coe Willingham: “You have to treat every game as equal and every game has to be just as important as the next one. I will say that tonight is a really important game for us since there is a lot of congestion in the Western Conference 1-4, you have to separate yourself somewhere. It’s important for us to take care of home court before we get on the road again in late July. We have to establish ourselves and try to get these early wins.”
• DeWanna Bonner: “They’re a great team. They got us here the first time. Yeah, it’s early on but it’s really important for us to come out here and play hard.
• Ketia Swanier: “Every game is important and every game is significant. I learned early on in college to take it game by game and trying to look in the past or too much forward. My father always told me not to worry about yesterday or tomorrow, worry about today.”

July 1st, 2009 12:56 PM