The No. 4-seed Phoenix Mercury may have lost to the No. 2-seed Las Vegas Aces in the first game of the 2025 WNBA Finals, but they aren’t panicking–and they shouldn’t be. Friday’s Game 1 came down to the wire,
and while the Aces prevailed 89-86 on their home court, all is not lost for the Mercury, who proved that they’re right where they belong in the best-of-seven championship series and are already looking forward to Game 2 on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, ABC).
For much of Game 1, Phoenix looked like the better basketball team. The Mercury got off to a hot start, playing to their strengths in their free-flowing offense and answering every Aces run with one of their own. At halftime, Kahleah Copper led all scorers with 19 points, while the Mercury as a team were shooting a highly efficient 18-for-34 from the field.
The Mercury weren’t able to keep that momentum going in the second half, however, particularly in the fourth quarter. A key defensive adjustment by the Aces to switch to a zone defense disrupted Phoenix’s pace of play—a critical factor for the Mercury against the bigger Las Vegas frontcourt—and the game ultimately slipped away in the closing minutes.
“[It] kind of made us stand a little bit,” Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts said of the Aces’ zone defense. “We didn’t handle it well. And that was part of the reason [Copper] didn’t get as many shots in the second half.”
“We rushed some shots,” added Copper, who scored just two points in the second half. “We should have slowed down a little bit.”
That’s not to say a more decisive counter-adjustment would have definitely won the Mercury the game. There were other issues: Satou Sabally was plagued by foul trouble, DeWanna Bonner shot the ball inefficiently (4-for-13) and Sami Whitcomb suffered a lower-leg injury that took her out of the game for several key minutes.
The point is, however, that the Mercury were right there, and they’re confident they can do it again—just with a better end result. Phoenix lost the first game in both its opening-round series against the New York Liberty and its semifinal series against the Minnesota Lynx, only to storm back and upset both opponents, so in that respect, the team’s current 0-1 deficit is familiar territory.
“Not that it doesn’t matter, but it’s okay. This is a long series,” Copper said after Game 1. “The takeaway from those other first [games] was the mindset was back to the drawing board. We have the utmost confidence in our locker room and in our coaches to make the adjustments.”
The Mercury will need to lean into their strengths in Game 2
The Mercury aren’t going to completely change who they are, of course. Most of what they did in Friday’s loss was good: They made 14 3-pointers as a team while holding the Aces’ vaunted backcourt of Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young to 5-for-20 shooting from the field. Phoenix even did a respectable job defending league MVP A’ja Wilson, who finished the game with 21 points and 10 rebounds but wasn’t the dominant force she was against the Mercury during the regular season.
Where Phoenix was outplayed, however, was on the margins. The Aces’ Dana Evans had one of the biggest games of her professional career, knocking down five 3-pointers off the bench and soundly outplaying the Mercury’s reserves. Alyssa Thomas, meanwhile, was statistically brilliant, finishing one assist shy of a triple-double, but she missed two free throws that would have put the Mercury ahead with 24 seconds remaining in regulation. Had Evans missed one or two more shots or Thomas made her free throws, the game could have easily gone the other way.
But it didn’t, and the Mercury once again find themselves down early in a playoff series. Tibbetts summarized the loss matter-of-factly, saying, “They made a couple plays down the stretch and we didn’t,” while expressing confidence that his team will bounce back. “We’ve been in a ton of close games. We’ve played well in the fourth [quarter] … This is going to be a great series. It’s going to come down to the last possessions of the game. We’ve handled these situations very well.”
If the Mercury are going to put themselves in a better position down the stretch of Game 2, they’ll need to continue shooting the ball at a high clip. Some more transition offense would be helpful, too; Phoenix recorded just four steals in Game 1 and was outscored on the fast break by Las Vegas, 13-10. Players like Wilson and Young are too talented to be held down for long, so when their offense inevitably comes around, the Mercury must be able to match them.
