It was the fourth quarter of a playoff game, so you knew the clutch and mildly infuriating Alyssa Thomas floater was coming eventually. But that shot still only made it a 77-76 game; the Phoenix Mercury would need a little more to complete their Game 2 comeback Tuesday against the Minnesota Lynx, on a night when they had trailed by 20 points halfway through the third quarter.
Leaning on their defensive strengths and their ability to get quick scores from stops, the Mercury had bottled up the Lynx offense in the second half. The Lynx didn’t shoot that poorly, but they didn’t shoot enough. Ten second-half turnovers and continued rebounding troubles meant Minnesota took 28 shots to Phoenix’s 40. So the game-tying sequence in the final seconds of the fourth quarter was fitting: Down three with 20 seconds remaining, the Mercury came out of a timeout and got a decent look for guard Sami Whitcomb, who missed badly. But her teammates kept the possession alive to give her a second chance as the game clock hit single digits, and the results were better this time. When Lynx center Alanna Smith left her feet trying to force Whitcomb off the line, Whitcomb shuffled to her left and got the shot she wanted. The two pivotal moments in the series are now—as everyone expected—the Co-Defensive Player of the Year being subbed out for a better rebounder, and the Co-Defensive Player of the Year biting on a pump fake.
In overtime, the Mercury kept forcing turnovers and running in transition, outscoring the Lynx 10-4 in those five minutes to win, 89-83. Among many things they should be proud of is their rare accomplishment: beating the Lynx in Minnesota. The series moves to Phoenix for Games 3 and 4.
A late bloomer who debuted in the WNBA at age 28, Whitcomb got her first real taste of playoff glory against the Mercury in 2018, when she played for the Seattle Storm. She began that postseason’s epic semifinals series outside the playoff rotation, but by Game 5, she’d worked her way into being a key piece. Her bench heroics set the table for a comeback win now remembered as "The Sue Bird Game.” Dan Hughes, the Storm's coach at the time, said then that he knew from Whitcomb's intense workouts that she'd be a difference-maker. “There are types of people who understand that if they want to be better, then they stay ready,” he said.
At Mercury training camp, head coach Nate Tibbetts mentioned the shot-tracking technology at the team’s practice facility, where player’s shots are counted and put up on a leaderboard. In four days, Whitcomb had taken the most—“by far,” he said. A photo of the leaderboard shared by Desert Wave Media in June later confirmed this: Megan McConnell, the player with the second-most shots taken, was at 3.8K; Whitcomb, in first place, had taken 10,488.
After Tuesday’s win, which tied the series at 1-1, Whitcomb reflected on the now 20,000 shots she’d taken in the Mercury practice facility this year. “20,000 for one shot,” she said. “It’s for these moments.” Other “little things” made the shot possible, too: When it was a 77-74 game and the Lynx had possession, Satou Sabally defended the inbounder well enough to force a five-second violation, a very uncharacteristic turnover. Thomas snuck behind Napheesa Collier to rebound Whitcomb’s airball and still got the ball back outside as three Lynx defenders closed in. After the game, Tibbetts and the players revealed that the sequence had not quite gone as planned. Expecting the Lynx to foul, Tibbetts drew up two plays to use. When Minnesota didn’t foul, the play ended up broken.
“Sami saved my ass,” Tibbetts said. The Mercury roster may feature several playoff-tested veterans, but he pointed out that is still a team figuring out how to play together. Of the five players on the floor for Whitcomb’s shot, only one was on the team last year. “We had to figure it out on our own,” Tibbetts said. “And that’s what great players do.”
