PHOENIX — The Phoenix Mercury beat the Dallas Wings 87-86 Monday night on a Kahleah Copper layup with 2.4 seconds left, ending Dallas’ six-game winning streak. The Wings led by 11 with 8:48 remaining at Mortgage Matchup Center, and Phoenix outscored them 24-12 the rest of the way before a sellout crowd of 11,941.
Paige Bueckers scored 30 points and broke Arike Ogunbowale’s franchise single-season scoring record in the loss. Bueckers has 853 points this season, four more than the 849 Ogunbowale scored over 40 games in 2023.
Dallas fell to 26-17 with one regular-season game left and won the season series with Phoenix 2-1. The Mercury improved to 16-27.
The final 49.6 seconds included 6 made free throws, a coach’s challenge, and a jump ball. Dallas did not score after taking an 86-83 lead with 16.9 seconds left.
“I think what everybody’s going to remember is the last minute of the game, and it’s something that we’ve talked about all year, how important every possession matters on both ends of the floor,” Wings coach José Fernández said. “And credit Phoenix, they made some good plays down the stretch. They got the stops that they needed, and, I mean, they really executed. They made their free throws also down the stretch.”
Jessica Shepard finished with 17 points, a game-high 19 rebounds, and 6 assists. Awak Kuier added 8 points, 5 rebounds, and a game-high 5 blocks.
Kahleah Copper And Alyssa Thomas Close Out The Phoenix Mercury Comeback
Dallas made its first three shots of the fourth quarter. Bueckers hit a pull-up jumper, Shepard finished a fast break after a steal by Odyssey Sims, and Kuier’s turnaround jumper made it 74-63 with 8:48 left, forcing a Phoenix timeout.
Over the next 5:41, the Wings scored 3 points and committed three turnovers. Copper scored on consecutive trips to cut the lead to 77-72 with 3:49 left, and Bueckers picked up her third and fourth fouls nine seconds apart. Shepard made two free throws for a 79-73 lead with 3:06 left, but Kara Dunn stripped her on the next possession and made two free throws of her own. Shepard then missed both attempts at the line with 2:35 left, and Copper’s reverse layup made it 79-77.
Ogunbowale answered with a step-back jumper with 1:43 left. Alyssa Thomas scored at the rim 20 seconds later, and Copper tied the game 81-81 at the free-throw line after Ogunbowale fouled her.
Bueckers put Dallas back in front with a 28-foot 3-pointer from Kuier with 33.3 seconds left. Copper made two more free throws after Ogunbowale’s fifth foul, and Ogunbowale made two at the other end for an 86-83 lead with 16.9 seconds left. Natasha Mack scored on a cut from Thomas 1.2 seconds after the inbound to make it 86-85.
A foul called on Thomas with 13.3 seconds left was overturned on a Phoenix coach’s challenge, and Copper won the jump ball that followed against Ogunbowale. Copper scored on another cut from Thomas with 2.4 seconds left. Bueckers’ 24-foot turnaround 3-pointer with 2.0 seconds left was off.
Phoenix went 5-of-21 from 3-point range and scored 40 points in the paint to Dallas’ 22. The Mercury made 26 of 30 free throws, 10 of 12 in the fourth quarter, while the Wings went 14-of-21.
“Well, I thought we did a good job defending from the arc as well, except giving up. We gave up a big three from the corner off of a baseline out of bounds,” Fernández explained. “It shouldn’t have happened, but came down to AT and Kah down the stretch. They made big plays.”
“I mean, you’re up three. You’ve got to string some stops. They get a back screen lob, which took no time off the clock. They beat us twice on two backdoor cuts. Just can’t happen,” Fernández continued. “We got to stay dialed in.”
Bueckers picked up three of her four fouls in the fourth quarter. Copper’s layups with 4:31 and 2.4 seconds left both came on cuts.
“Fouling and I think backdoor layups. I know I gave up two,” Bueckers said. “So just got to [be] better, more locked in. We know Kah’s really pulling her backdoor when she’s in the corner. It’s tough, though, because you don’t want her getting a full head of steam coming out, so just being more disciplined in our game plan and sticking to that and defending without fouling.”
Dallas held Phoenix to 5 fast-break points and won second-chance points 7-3. The Mercury scored 16 of their 26 fourth-quarter points in the paint.
“I think anytime you can hold a team in this league to five points in transition, obviously that’s huge, but we didn’t do a good enough job matched up five on five in the half court,” Shepard said.
Copper finished with 31 points on 10-of-17 shooting and made 10 of 13 free throws. She scored 16 points in the fourth quarter and 22 after halftime. Thomas had 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 12 assists for a triple-double, and she assisted on both of Phoenix’s final baskets. Mack scored 12 points, and Dunn added 11 on 3-of-4 shooting from 3-point range.
Copper missed Saturday’s 87-82 Dallas win in Arlington with a right groin injury. She and Bueckers were teammates on the U.S. team that won the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Berlin this month.
“I hate Kah right now, but I love her for real. But, yeah, that’s my dog,” Bueckers explained. “To share the same love and passion for basketball and hot dogs, we definitely bond over the both. But just who she is as a basketball player, how hard she competes on both ends of the floor. We talked about it at USA, how she’s very unique as a player, as a guard, a big guard, gets downhill, can shoot threes, is really aggressive.”
“It’s tough to guard. Then plays both ends of the floor extremely well, and rebounds her butt off too. So only great things I can say about Kah,” Bueckers continued. “And then obviously as a friend, just a motivator, and a shared love for everything. So we get along really well.”
Paige Bueckers Passes Arike Ogunbowale For The Wings’ Single-Season Scoring Record
Bueckers’ pull-up jumper with 5:50 left in the fourth quarter gave her 850 points this season, one more than Ogunbowale’s 2023 total. She finished 12-of-22 from the field and 4-of-5 from 3-point range, with 5 rebounds, 7 assists, and 1 steal in 33 minutes.
It was her fourth 30-point game this season and the sixth of her career, the second-most in Wings history. Bueckers has 16 games this season with at least 7 assists, and her 17 games with at least 20 points and 5 assists are the fourth-most in the WNBA.
Bueckers accounted for all of Dallas’ first 13 points. She scored 5 and assisted on the other 8, including two 3-pointers from Kuier, and the Wings took the lead for good in the first quarter on her 3-pointer with 6:05 left. Dallas led 26-19 after one quarter, and Bueckers had 9 points on 3-of-5 shooting with 4 assists.
Maddy Siegrist hit a 3-pointer with 7:21 left in the second quarter for a 35-21 lead. Dunn made three 3-pointers in the quarter, the last two with 1:32 and 1:03 left, and the second of those cut the margin to 45-43. Shepard made two free throws with 34.2 seconds left, and Dallas led 47-43 at halftime. Siegrist scored 7 of her 9 points in the second quarter.
Bueckers had 13 points and 6 assists at halftime. Dallas assisted on 13 of its 17 first-half field goals.
Phoenix opened the third quarter with a 7-0 run and took a 50-49 lead with 7:36 left on two free throws from Mack, its first lead since 8-7 in the first quarter. Bueckers’ 3-pointer with 6:34 left put Dallas back ahead 54-52, and the Wings did not trail again until Copper’s final basket. That shot started a 17-3 Dallas run that ended with a 68-55 lead with 2:56 left in the third. Bueckers scored 10 points in 7 minutes of the quarter.
Shepard had 5 points and 9 rebounds in the third quarter. Her 24th double-double of the season is the second-most in the WNBA. It was her ninth game this season with at least 15 rebounds, the most in the league, and her WNBA-leading 13th with at least 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists. She grabbed 5 offensive rebounds and went 7-of-12 at the free-throw line.
Kuier blocked 3 shots in the first quarter and made both of her 3-point attempts. It was her fourth game this season with at least 5 blocks, the most in the WNBA. Li Yueru had 5 points and 3 rebounds in 11 minutes, and Dallas outscored Phoenix by 14 with her on the floor. Ogunbowale finished with 7 points on 2-of-8 shooting, including 1-of-6 from 3-point range.
Dallas shot 41.9% from the field, 43.5% from 3-point range, and 66.7% from the free-throw line. Phoenix shot 41.8% from the field, 23.8% from 3-point range, and 86.7% at the line. The Wings outrebounded the Mercury 42-32, and Phoenix scored 14 points off Dallas’ 9 turnovers. Alanna Smith was not with the team because of a lower left leg injury, and Kelsey Plum did not dress for Phoenix with a lower left leg injury.
Dallas is tied with the New York Liberty for seventh place and sits half a game behind the sixth-place Washington Mystics (26-16). The Wings hold the tiebreaker over New York after winning the season series 2-1. Washington holds the tiebreaker over Dallas after winning its series 2-1. Dallas is 1.5 games behind the Indiana Fever (27-15), who have two games left against the first-place Minnesota Lynx, and the Wings won the season series with Indiana 2-1.
Dallas closes the regular season Wednesday at the Seattle Storm. Tip-off is set for 9 p.m. CT, with the game airing nationally on USA Network and locally on KFAA-29 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
