Cappie Pondexter received a text message from their other leader, Diana Taurasi, right as the game ended (9:20) that said, “Yeah!! Tell everyone good S***!!!”

Even though Dee wasn’t physically in a Mercury uniform or in the arena, she wasn’t completely absent…

With all the drama/excitement of the past week, it’s easy to forget there was a game to play; and an important game at that. The Shock came to Phoenix winning two in a row and the Mercury have been on fire winning their last 5.  However, a huge piece was missing in the Mercury’s lineup tonight as captain Diana Taurasi is serving game #1 of her 2 game suspension. Also without newly acquired Penny Taylor, the Mercury were extremely short-handed (9 players) in an already short rotation. Thus, to win this game, the Mercury would need a big contribution from not only Cappie and Meek, but from the entire squad.

Well, that’s exactly what they got.

Cappie came up big once again with 26 points, 8 assists, and 7 rebounds. Le’coe added 22 points and 7 rebounds. Meek had 18 points, 3 assists, and 4 rebounds. Ketia had another fantastic game scoring 13 points and adding a huge spark off the bench.

I’ve said it probably 20 times this season - the Mercury are one of the (if not the) most resilient teams in the league; and they demonstrated how resilient they are again tonight in a 97-90 overtime win. “We showed how great we can be as a team,” Cappie said about the win. “Even when one of our best players is not in the game we were still able to win and it shows how good of a team we are. Everybody stepped up for us today; Ketia and Le’coe in the 4th quarter and OT. It shows our growth and our potential.”

The first half was a tale of runs; the first quarter the Mercury started on fire hitting three straight three-pointers and jumped out to a 25-21 lead. Though, each team really didn’t shoot very well collectively with the Merc hitting on only 31.8% of their shots and the Shock only 40%. What the Mercury did do well is crash the boards with DeWanna grabbing 6 in the quarter and Tangela 4 in the quarter. With a good rebounding team like the Shock, being this aggressive is absolutely essential.

The Mercury continued this trend for the first 6 minutes of the 2nd quarter, but fell apart somewhat towards the end. In the last 4 minutes of the half, the Shock went on a 16-4 run (including 2 free-throws with .3 left) to go up by 2 at the half. Ketia Swanier was much more aggressive with her shot scoring 7 points and grabbing 4 rebounds while turning the ball over only once.  Cappie was her usual self with a team-high 14 points at the half to go along with her 3 rebounds and 2 assists. All in all, a somewhat average half by both teams collectively and it showed in the box score, 45-43 Detroit.

The 3rd quarter had a bit more action. Temeka and Le’coe were the go-to players with Meek scoring 8 and Le’coe 6 to keep the Mercury in the game. Ketia also played well hitting 2 three-pointers to pace Phoenix. Phoenix seemed to find their their groove on the offensive end with 28 total points in the quarter, holding the Shock to only 19. Detroit came out in the 4th quarter ready to fight (no surprise there). Katie Smith scored 7 points for the Shock to begin the 4th quarter which led to Detroit grabbing a 4 point lead at one point. In fact, the Shock went on a 14-4 run until the 5 minute mark of the 4th quarter before the Mercury pulled to within 1 with just under 4:30 to go. It went back and forth until the end where Deanna Nolan hit a three with just under 6 seconds left to send the game into overtime.

With as fast as the Mercury play, it’s no surprise how physically conditioned they are and if they need to, any given player can contribute more minutes than planned. In overtime, it’s a perfect time to wear teams down and push up the tempo even more; that’s precisely what the Mercury did in the overtime period scoring 14 points in 5 minutes and holding Detroit to just 7.  “I told them it was to our advantage,” Gaines said about heading into OT. “I told them to keep pushing the ball and to go faster. We outscored them 14-7 in OT so we were able to do that.”

The true hero in the OT period was Le’coe Willingham who scored 6 of their 14 points (including  2 big free-throws). “The most important thing was when she [Katie] hit the shot I looked around at the team and nobody looked deflated,” Le’coe said after the game. “It wasn’t really a deflating moment for us. 40 minutes is a long time to run with us; add five more minutes and that’s even tougher.”

In all, the Mercury showed true grit, heart, and determination tonight against a really good Detroit team whose record certainly does not do them justice.

Other Random Notes

• Mercury now hold a 2.5 game lead in the West
• Phoenix’s 6 wins in a row is just one shy of their franchise record (7)
• Mercury are undefeated in inter-conference play
• Mercury are 2-0 in OT’s this season
• Meek hit a career-high 4 three-pointers
• Tangela’s record of consecutive free-throws made ended tonight at 36
• Mercury are now 6-0 in July

July 18th, 2009 10:23 PM