Phoenix Mercury blame recent slump on lack of practices since Olympic, All-Star break

The Phoenix Mercury (16-16) know they have to get back to basics during practice before hosting the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday.

After the Mercury were handed their second straight loss by the Minnesota Lynx at home on Wednesday, Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts admitted to the media that the team’s offense is “in a funk” and needs to regroup in practice on Friday.

The Mercury are 3-4 since the WNBA season’s second half began in mid-August following the Olympic break.

Five of the Mercury’s first seven games since the break were away, and the team began its five-game homestand on Monday.

“We’ll have them here over the next few days. We’re going to watch film and try to improve,” Tibbetts said following Wednesday’s game. “This is the most we’ve struggled offensively all year, and we need to snap out of it.”

The Mercury have had mostly pregame shootarounds without a full home practice with scrimmaging. They’ve had some roster adjustments, adding rookie point guard Celeste Taylor and veteran power forward Monique Billings, plus playing without their starting wing and versatile floor spacer Bec Allen (right hamstring).

They had a film session on Tuesday, on Wednesday had a shootaround, an off-day on Thursday, and practices on Friday and Saturday.

“Practice. I think with just some of the injuries we have had, we have kind of an older roster, so you want to kind of protect that, but sometimes you just have to roll your sleeves up and go to work,” Sophie Cunningham (team-high 16 points, six rebounds in the loss to Minnesota) said. “I think that is exactly what we are going to do. I think we have a bunch of dogs on this team. We are all staying strong together.

“Sometimes you just have to go through that grossness together, and it sucks. You can’t really do anything about it, but you just got to keep putting in the work and eventually, it will all come together when it is supposed to. It really is just practicing. We haven’t had a legit practice in quite a long time. I think everyone is pretty much looking forward to Friday.”

The Mercury offense has a minus-45 point differential during the first quarters in the last four losses.

Phoenix was down by as many as 15 to Minnesota in the first. On Monday at home against New York, Phoenix had its season’s second-lowest first-quarter scoring output of nine points, eventually held that game’s biggest deficit 17, and lost by 14. Monday’s opening-period performance by the Mercury mirrored theirs at Atlanta on Aug. 21, in which the Mercury posted their season-low 6 points, trailed by 13 entering the second quarter, and lost by 9. During the Mercury’s 9-point loss at the Indiana Fever on Aug. 16, Phoenix was down 19 in the first quarter’s final minute, then Indiana inflated to 28 midway through the second quarter.

The Mercury are ranked 11th in first-quarter scoring (19.5 points), and ninth in turnovers for that same period (3.6). Ten of the Mercury’s total 19 turnovers came in the first quarter against Minnesota, and they gave up 25 points on turnovers. A similar thing happened on Monday when they had 20 turnovers and relinquished 28 points from them.

“It’s gonna take time,” Tibbets said. “Listen, we’ve come back from All-Star break and not really had any practices. We need to get back in the gym and get to work and focus on our offense.”

Time is not on the Mercury’s side.

They’ve been in sixth place all season, and have to worry about the rising No. 7 Caitlin Clark-led Fever (15-16), which has won four of their last five and is half a game behind the Mercury in the playoff hunt for the bottom of the eight-team bracket. The Mercury have eight games left before the playoffs begin on Sept. 22.

The fifth-place and two-time defending champion Aces, led by the league’s top scorer A’ja Wilson, and three additional Olympians (Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray), are having their own struggles at 2-4 following the break. However, the Aces (18-12) have a cushion at six games above .500 that they built from being one of the league’s hottest teams by winning 10 of 12 games entering the Phoenix All-Star Weekend before the break began in late July.

“It sucks that we didn’t have a real practice, that’s the W (WNBA),” Natasha Mack (four points, seven rebounds, two steals against the Lynx) said. “You have to lock in every game day because you never know who’s going to run, who’s not. So, to snap out of it we just depend on each other, this is a tight-knit group. We all need each other.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury need offensive revamp to get back on track