Quick Three: Mercury 83 Sky 79
Chicago comes up just short after impressive comeback in the second-half in Phoenix.
As the Sky enter the final stretch of their season—which includes 5 road games (4 out West) in the last 7, the focus is on continuing to lay positive building blocks for the 2026 version of this team (however that looks), and it’s fair to say there was plenty of positives to take from tonight in that respect. That said, the final result, too, must be acknowledged and Chicago came up just short despite a valiant effort after halftime. Let’s dive into what (or who) kept the Sky in the game, why they slipped out of it and what could’ve been done differently to avoid needing a second-half comeback.
1. AT Gets Last Laugh in Box Office Battle
At several points in tonight’s fourth quarter, it felt like Angel Reese or Alyssa Thomas had dealt a body blow that—maybe just maybe—their opponent couldn’t recover from. Chicago, mind you, never edged in front by enough to truly land a knockout blow, but Reese produced a series of strong efforts in the fourth quarter that, if nothing else, extended her team an opportunity to comeback and win the game. Meanwhile, Thomas—one of the MVP frontrunners heading into the final weeks of the season—continued to produce the type of all-around efforts that have gotten her into that discussion all throughout the back-and-forth final frame. And yet—in the end, it was Thomas who ended up getting the final word in as the Mercury won, and she produced one or two extra plays in the final 10 minutes that swung the game in her side’s favor.
Yet, tonight’s game still presented an interesting case study for how Reese has evolved as a player. She started the game slowly (1/6 FG, 3 TO in 1H), in part because she fell into one of the traps that so often hurt her efficiency in her rookie season: attacking the basket with a relative lack of regard for what was happening around her. As we saw at times in match-ups with the Sun a year ago, that’s a real problem against a defender like Thomas because she’s so effective on that side of the ball and presents a near perfect physical match-up for Reese as well. Early on tonight, it felt a bit like times of old as Thomas kept Reese from generating enough speed to create the space she likes to score in after slowing off a drive and, as a result, other Mercury players (or Thomas herself) were able to alter Reese’s shots.
Unlike in her rookie season, Reese didn’t keep running down the same path as the game went on, and varied her approach just enough to knock Thomas out of her defensive rhythm at various points in the fourth quarter. The result was that Reese was much more efficient (4/5 FG), protected the ball better (1 TO) and was able to effectively sustain the offense even as the Sky searched for a consistent second option (more on that in a second). The only problem? Thomas was just about as effective (7 PTS, 2/2 FG) at the offensive end while making one or two critical defensive plays that swung the game in the Mercury’s favor. In particular, her ability to contain Reese with 34 seconds remaining as the Sky forward drove to the basket was key in allowing time for Natasha Mack to come across and register her fifth block of the night on a shot attempt that could’ve tied the game at 79.
The lesson for Reese (or perhaps more importantly for the Sky’s front office as it looks to continue building around her) is that the faults in her game which periodically doomed her offensive success as a rookie are far less pervasive this season. At a high-level, we’ve seen that all season long, but tonight was a great example of how—even when Reese deals with an issue early in a game—she’s capable of continuing to evolve and adapt in real time. Sure, she was still caught out on a key possession in the final minute, but crunch time situations are still a work in progress for this team that hasn’t been in many of them, and the larger takeaway should be that—without Reese’s play in the fourth—the game wouldn’t have been close anyways. Whether it’s down to slight technique adjustments she made as the game went along or simply out-motoring Alyssa Thomas and beating her athletically (no small feat against perhaps the greatest “motor” in WNBA history) as natural fatigue set in, Reese met the level of one of the top favorites for MVP in the final quarter, and the Sky—as a team—were able to keep pace as a result. Win or lose, that shouldn’t go unnoticed as another marker of her sophomore growth.
2. “Second Option” Copper the Difference
The biggest difference in the game for the Mercury—when you consider how effectively the two fours cancelled each other out overall—has to be the impact of Kahleah Copper. Sky fans, of course, are highly familiar (like the rest of the WNBA has been for several years now) with how Copper can change a game, but the degree to which she outperformed the Sky’s secondary offensive options was the difference in the game. Reason being? Kahleah Copper is nobody’s second option. The offense may flow through Thomas because of her natural abilities as a playmaker, but there’s no doubting Copper as a 1A player. The Sky, on the other hand, have not often had a player consistently delivering at (or even above) the level that Reese is at.
Meanwhile, they’ve never had a player at a 28 point (on 56/57/86 splits!) level like Copper was tonight. Even when Atkins or Cardoso are at their best, they’ve not been that good with any sense of regularity and Atkins, in particular, looked a little off of her best tonight. Tasked with chasing Copper around at various points in the game, she struggled to effectively close gaps at the perimeter (no doubt a partial contributor to Copper’s electric long-range night), and her offensive game was quiet early like Reese’s and failed to warm up in the same way in the final frame. In fairness, she did hit a key pull-up jumper to cut the deficit to 3 with two minutes remaining, but she was otherwise scoreless in the fourth quarter and, undoubtedly, the Sky offense suffers as a result.
Cardoso, on the other hand, was solid overall (15 PTS, 7/15 FG) and in the fourth (4 PTS, 2/2 FG) but doesn’t provide that much different of a threat to Reese—certainly not in the way Atkins does. Consequently, even a solid showing from the Brazilian doesn’t do that much to open up the floor, and—as a result—some of the exact issues Reese may run into while trying to make something happen for the offense are hurt by Cardoso’s presence (the Mack block late being a perfect example). This is no fault of Cardoso but, rather, a direct result of having two non-shooting bigs as your primary sources of offense—especially when Atkins doesn’t have her best stuff. As we look towards 2026 and beyond, this is a key issue the Sky have come no closer to solving this season: neither big has added much range to their game and, as a result, it can get very difficult to unsettle the defense at times—like in tonight’s second quarter.
3. Disastrous Second Quarter Complicates Path to Victory
Which leads me nicely to the final observation from tonight’s game: the second quarter was a complete mess. Chicago finished just 3/18 from the floor in the period and registered twice as many offensive rebounds (6) as made shots—never a good sign. The offense, simply put, was poor, and this possession exemplifies a big part of where things went wrong:
The entire framework of this baseline inbound play is basically built around getting an entry pass into Reese in the post. As soon as Thomas fronts her, the Sky look a little lost, and the second option they resort to is, you guessed it, all built around Cardoso getting a post entry pass. This time it’s Bonner doing the fronting and, in desperation, the pass goes into the post anyways where it’s easily intercepted. Of course, this is just one play with an abbreviated shot clock; so, it’s not fair to blame a putrid eight-point quarter on this alone, but it’s pretty reflective of what happened throughout the entirety of the quarter.
The Sky got caught time and time again in sets where only two players (the ball-handler and whoever was posting up/screening) really mattered, and the other three were largely spectators. If you’ve got a post player rolling or your pick-and-roll combination is slicing up the defense, that might be a justifiable approach, but Chicago had neither at this point in the game, and the stagnation only serves to perpetuate the exact problems that slowed things down in the first place.
On a short-term basis, the concern was that Tyler Marsh didn’t appear to have many solutions for this problem. In the flow of the game, there were no obvious adjustments, and he took just one timeout in the second quarter—which actually came earlier in the frame before things had gotten out of hand. After that break with 8:05 left in the first half, he—like many of his offensive players—was a passenger as Phoenix finished the half on a 16-8 run and completely flipped the game on its head. Thanks to the Mercury’s so-so offense in the first half, the gap didn’t actually get out of hand, but Phoenix established momentum which allowed them to sustain even as the Sky produced a strong third quarter and was eventually just enough to keep the lead late. As the old adage goes, you don’t win games early on, but you can lose them and Marsh nearly did just that in this case. More often than not, I’ve praised his work in a complicated first season as a head coach, but this was a textbook example of timeouts going to waste at a key moment in the game.
On a longer-term basis, the concern—returning to point #2 above—is that this Sky team is still built around two interior players with little-to-no range. For as long as it takes Chicago to land a true superstar of Copper’s caliber (of which Atkins, for all she offers, is not), there will be inevitable limitations that the offense faces unless (1) they build a dynamic supporting cast of 5-6 reliable players who can shoot the ball and score consistently (virtually impossible to do in the WNBA) or (2) one/both of the bigs expands their range. Both players are young, so, there’s still time for the second to become a reality, and Reese’s work with the ball in hand adds one much needed layer, but these two core pieces—for all the way's they’re a perfect fit (on the glass for instance)—are still an offensive challenge in their current state. That was never a problem that was going to be solved tonight anyways, but it’s one that should be a front of mind question for the Sky. If uncorrected, it will doom their (already slim) chances of becoming a serious threat by the start of next season.