From their rigid defense to feeding off the energy of a sellout crowd at Wintrust Arena, the Chicago Sky coasted to a 86-50 win against the Phoenix Mercury in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals on Friday night, moving within one win of their first championship.
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“Sky in four!” chants permeated throughout the arena in the waning minutes of the game. Grammy Award-winner Chance The Rapper, donning a Kahleah Copper jersey, pumped up a roaring crowd while those watching the broadcast struggled to hear the announcers because of the cacophony of screaming Sky fans.
Just when it seemed the crowd couldn’t produce more noise, rookie Dana Evans drained three 3-pointers in a span of 1 minute, 20 seconds to reignite the roar.
After his team won by the largest margin in WNBA Finals history, Sky coach and general manager James Wade stopped short of saying his team has the momentum heading into Game 4 (2 p.m. Sunday at Wintrust, ESPN). But he was impressed with how his bench stopped the Mercury’s second unit from gaining any traction in the series.
“I am not sure if it gives us momentum but I’m 100% sure it doesn’t give (the Mercury) any,” Wade said. “You don’t want to give someone a false confidence where they can say, ‘OK, this is what we did at the end.’ When the bench first came in, they were trying to get to a place where they could get some chemistry, and once they did we were able to distance ourselves more.”
Late-game execution aside, it was the first two quarters of Game 3 that set the tone. The Sky took out the Mercury’s starting lineup from the beginning, and the Mercury’s 31 points were the lowest total for a starting group in Finals history. The Mercury shot 26% from the field, the lowest shooting percentage in a Finals game.
But Candace Parker isn’t taking the Mercury for granted. In 2016 and 2017, Parker was a member of Los Angeles Sparks teams that jumped to 2-1 series leads but failed to finish the job in Game 4. The Sparks won in five games in 2016 but lost to the Minnesota Lynx in 2017.
“They are a great team, but we came in with a defensive effort tonight where we were able to make things difficult,” said Parker, a Naperville native in her first season with the Sky after spending the first 13 seasons of her career with the Sparks. “Our team did a good job of rotating and helping each other, but we’re not going to (hold them to 50 points) every night. … They are going to come out on Sunday, but it is our job to make things difficult for them.”
Parker scored 13 points Friday, second on the Sky to Kahleah Copper, who poured in 20 of her game-high 22 in the first half.
Before Game 2, Stefanie Dolson said the Sky had experimented with different defensive schemes during the second half of the season. Having one of the most athletic frontcourts in the WNBA, they decided to hard hedge aggressively in the playoffs. The Sky have allowed 10.3 points per game less in the postseason than they did in the last 12 games of the season.
Throughout the second half of the season, Wade tried to get more out of the defense. By switching to a scheme that forced them to play with more activity on that end of the floor, the Sky haven’t skipped a beat despite not practicing the new scheme before the playoffs.
“I studied a lot of basketball teams and I thought our energy wasn’t great at the end of the season,” Wade said. “I guess it was reverse psychology of some sort where I put us in a situation where our energy needed to be good and trust each other.”
The Mercury are searching for answers on how to attack this new Sky defense. Diana Taurasi and Skyler Diggins-Smith have struggled in the Finals outside of the second half of Game 2. Brittney Griner was spectacular in that game but didn’t have the same inside presence in Game 3.
“(The Sky’s hard hedging) has been a big factor this series,” Mercury coach Sandy Brondello said. “We have to play a little bit smarter around it, but it is their aggressiveness in the hard hedging and in their rotations that can make you overthink it or rush. That’s when our smarts have to come into play.”
As for Griner, the formula for Game 4 is simple.
“I need to play more physical,” she said.
Catch up on our Chicago Sky coverage.
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