CHICAGO – By the fourth quarter of Friday’s third game in the WNBA Finals, much of the electrical power in a sold-out Wintrust arena was gone.
Not because the hometown of Chicago Sky was struggling. On the contrary, they are now only one win away from the first WNBA title in franchise history. It’s just that the Sky so thoroughly dominated the Phoenix Mercury in an 86:50 win that Chicago fans were able to relax for much of the second half.
Both teams gave their reserves plenty of time, and it was only a matter of time to reach the final 36-point lead that is the largest in the history of the WNBA Finals.
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“I’m not focusing on what we won with, but how we played,” said Chicago coach James Wade. “We know we have to stay focused. I want them to feel good about winning tonight, but after tonight we really have to focus on the next game. We have to take care of business.”
The Sky, which joined the league in 2006 as an expansion team, will host the Mercury in Game 4 on Sunday (3pm ET, ESPN). They lead the best-of-five streak 2-1, and one win will make Chicago the 10th WNBA franchise to win a championship as the league celebrates its 25th season this year.
Phoenix has three titles, but the fourth seems a long way off after almost everything went wrong for the Mercury on Friday. Her 25.8 shot rate from the field was a WNBA final low.
“We can’t be worse than 50,” said Phoenix Guard Diana Taurasi of the Mercury season low, which is also the second lowest total in a WNBA finals game. “We’re going to be better than 50. You can take this with you to Vegas.”
Candace Parker from Chicago has been in this situation before. In 2016 and 2017 when she was at Los Angeles, the Sparks faced a WNBA Finals 4 at home with a chance to win a championship. You both lost. In 2016, they won the title anyway in Game 5 on the Road in Minnesota. In 2017, however, they lost the championship to the Lynx.
The last thing Heaven wants now is to return to Phoenix.
“This is where we want to be, for a chance,” said Parker, who returned to her hometown of Chicago this season as a free agent. “But they are a great team. The biggest thing is not to overtake us. It is crucial for us to have the same mentality that we had in this game.”
Every Sky player scored on Friday, led by Kahleah Copper with 22 points. Courtney Vandersloot had 10 assists, overtaking Seattle’s Sue Bird for most WNBA playoff games with double-digit assists (10). Vandersloot also now has a WNBA postseason record of 87 assists this year.
The sky may have been shaken after losing game 2 in overtime in Phoenix on Wednesday. Instead, they dominated Friday almost from the top and set the final record for the greatest lead at halftime (22). The last time a team had such a big lead in a WNBA final game during recess was the same two franchises – Game 1 of the 2014 final when Phoenix had the big lead. The Mercury won this game and won the series for their third championship.
Taurasi and Brittney Griner were on that Mercury team and if they are to force a Game 5 this year they will both have to help fix the issue with Mercury’s offensive on Friday. Griner was the only Phoenix player to score in double digits, but she was only 7 out of 17 for 16 points. The Taurasi and Skylar Diggins-Smith guards shot 3-of-19 off the field together.
“To be honest, nothing worked today,” said Taurasi. “Inside and out, they really got us out of whatever we wanted to run.”
Diggins-Smith said, “It was ugly as hell. Give them all credit and let’s play on Sunday. We didn’t lose the show tonight. We have the opportunity to get them out of the mud. We have you have to bring it with you. That’s what you want. “
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