The Phoenix Mercury were supposed to run over the WNBA this year. With Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor returning to the league after one-year hiatuses, general managers deemed the Mercury preseason title favorites.
The Mercury once had the WNBA’s best defense. Why can’t they stop teams anymore?
Two years after they were the league’s best defensive team, the disappointing Phoenix Mercury are one of the league’s worst. There’s one major reason for that.
Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
Instead they sit in as the No. 7 seed in an eight-team playoff with a 10-14 record. With just 10 games left in the regular season and five teams within two wins of the final two spots, there’s no guarantee they’ll even make the playoffs.
So how has a team with five All-Stars in its starting lineup stumbled to such mediocrity?
It’s because they’ve only played up to par on one end of the court. The Mercury are allowing 106.3 points per 100 possessions this season, the second-worst mark since the league began posting advanced stats publicly in 2014. This is despite keeping six of their top seven leaders in minutes from two seasons ago, when they won a championship with the league’s best defensive rating. Somehow, the Mercury are allowing 12.4 points more per 100 possessions than they did two years ago despite using many of the same players.
“We’re giving teams too many wide-open looks,” coach Sandy Brondello told SB Nation. “We’re sending teams to the free throw line way too much, we’re giving up offensive rebounds.”
The Mercury’s defensive decline begins with teams changing their strategy to attack back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year Brittney Griner. To minimize her paint dominance, opponents are using sweet-shooting bigs to pull the 6’9 shot blocker away from the hoop. Curbing Griner’s shot-blocking ability by spacing her out to the perimeter has allowed teams to attack the rim and grab offensive rebounds that aren’t usually available.
“When you have a player like [Griner] you want to keep her away from the basket as much as possible,” Taurasi told SB Nation. “It puts us in a tough spot.”
Using offensive alignments to push Griner away from the hoop has cut her blocks per game to three and her defensive rebounds to 4.6, both the lowest numbers of her four-year career.
The intimidation factor Griner used to anchor better Mercury defenses in the past has been completely minimized. She doesn’t just block shots; she forces players to readjust and miss over her unprecedented 7’4 wingspan. Since she’s pulled away from the basket by her assignment more often, more shots in the paint are uncontested, or are at least contested by a less imposing defender. That’s how Phoenix starts to lose the overwhelming edge it has playing a once-in-a-generation center that’s several inches taller and much more talented than her competition.
Teams have also been able to exploit Griner’s lack of lateral mobility defending the pick and roll. Griner’s matchup will often set ball screens in an effort to draw her away from the paint and attempt to create a mismatch for their guard. Phoenix guards and forwards have struggled to get over that initial screen, and in turn Griner is forced to step further away from the basket than she’s comfortable. That leaves her matchup open, which becomes a problem if her matchup is a capable shooter, as has been the case more often this year.
Getting over the screen has been an issue for Taurasi in particular. Though she plays the bulk of her minutes with Griner on the floor, it often looks like she’s getting blind-sided. To keep Griner near the basket, the other four Mercury players have to work harder and communicate to cover for each other. Their failures in defending the pick and roll revealed how they’ve fallen short in those areas.
Griner’s been slow to relocate her assignment off screens as well. She’s much more comfortable defending a small radius near the basket. Thus, it takes too long to run out and affect the shooter’s aim on mid-range and three-point shots.
“We’re over-helping when we don’t need to over-help and we’re under-helping when we need to,” Brondello said. “[Griner’s] getting a little too much separation, a little slow to recover, but it’s team defense, we still need to be helping the helper.”
With Griner a step slow, opponents are able to launch a barrage of open shots at the elbows and free throw line extended.
“They’re trying to keep me out of the paint,” Griner told SB Nation. “But I’m still gonna go in there though.”
Phoenix has other defensive issues, but all roads lead back to Griner’s understandable reluctance to leave the area she’s traditionally dominated. Opponents have picked up on that tendency and are making her pay for it.
The time for the Mercury to correct its defensive woes is running out with just 10 games remaining in the regular season. They’ll also miss out on valuable practice time during the Olympic break, as Taurasi, Taylor, Griner and Sonja Petrovic will head to Rio.
If the team’s veterans can quickly fix their communication problems and find ways to give Griner time to recover, there’s reason to believe the Mercury can be good enough on the defensive end to stay relevant in the playoffs. They certainly have the offensive talent, as they’re third in the league in scoring efficiency.
But without any defensive improvement, they’ll be hard pressed to get through the red-hot Los Angeles Sparks (21-3) and Minnesota Lynx (21-4) in the postseason, if they even get there at all.
