Phoenix Mercury eliminated from WNBA Commissioner’s Cup in loss to Las Vegas Aces

The Phoenix Mercury were dealt a triple negative after losing to the Las Vegas Aces at home on Thursday.

First, Phoenix could’ve earned a WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship berth against the New York Liberty (11-2) in Brooklyn on June 25, but the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm stood in the way.

Shortly before Phoenix faced Las Vegas (6-5) for the third time this season, Phoenix was presumptively eliminated from the league’s in-season tournament after the Seattle Storm beat the Dallas Wings, 92-84. Seattle’s win pushed the Minnesota Lynx (9-3) into the title game to represent the Western Conference against New York, the league’s hottest team on a seven-game win streak, including 5-0 in tournament play, and the defending Cup champion.

Coincidentally, the Mercury host the Storm this Sunday in the second of a three-game homestand.

Second, the Mercury fell to the Aces in the third of their four-game season series.

Third, losing to Las Vegas puts Phoenix (6-7) below the .500 mark for the second time this season. Phoenix also fell under .500 in a road loss to New York on May 29, which was the third of Phoenix’s longest losing streak at four. Thursday’s loss snapped the Mercury’s brief two-game win streak, after dropping five of their previous six.

Minnesota is atop the West standings and is 4-1 in the tournament, Seattle (9-4 overall) improved to 4-1 and Phoenix fell to 3-2 in Cup play. Minnesota won the tiebreaker over Seattle due to the Lynx’s win over the Storm in their Cup matchup last Sunday.

“I don’t think we’ve had much time to think about it. Obviously, that would’ve been a big flight. You want those opportunities. Obviously, we were disappointed,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said after the game about being bounced out by Seattle. “We didn’t talk about it before the game, like, ‘Hey, they lost, so we’re not playing for anything.'”

Tibbetts said during the Mercury’s shootaround on Thursday that they’d track the Storm-Wings game.

There was a nearly impossible longshot for Phoenix advancing to the Cup championship after Seattle beat Dallas.

Phoenix had to beat the two-defending world champion Las Vegas by more than 58 points because of the point differential factor for Phoenix, Seattle and Minnesota in their tournament victories before Thursday.

Phoenix accumulated a plus-nine differential, Seattle held a 28, and Minnesota has 67. If Phoenix and Seattle both won their Thursday games and had a three-way tie with Minnesota at 4-1, then the tiebreaker would’ve gone to the team with the highest point differential from their five Cup games, plus their head-to-head matchup results. Phoenix’s home win over Minnesota on June 7 plus beating the Aces by more than 58 would’ve kept the Mercury rising to the top.

The Mercury had a glimmer of hope initially to being apace to pull off the insurmountable feat. Led by Diana Taurasi‘s 10 first-quarter points, the Mercury dominated the Aces for a 28-12 lead to close the first quarter and hit 61% of their shots to the Aces struggled on 29.4%. Then the Aces surged in the second and ultimately cooled Phoenix off.

“After the first quarter, I thought we were going to win by 58 … but then we didn’t,” Diana Taurasi said in jest about blowing a 16-point lead and the point differential factor.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mercury drop to Aces, out of WNBA Commissioner’s Cup contention