The congested schedule for the Phoenix Mercury and across the WNBA has caused many players to battle through adversity and fatigue, trying to give it their all during every second that they are on the court.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Olympic Break Causing WNBA Schedule Havoc
To accommodate the season and end on time while making way for a month-long Olympic break from mid-July to mid-August, the WNBA is arguably in the middle of one of the tightest schedules the league has ever produced.
Some teams are playing every other day while others are spaced out, showing just how jumbled the current situation is.
For the Mercury, they are in the tail end of a stretch where they will be on the road in five of the last seven games, spanning from May 26 to this Sunday, June 9. In that span, the team has not practiced or had a shootaround at Verizon 5G Performance Center in Phoenix since, unable to have the adequate amount of time to go through important drills or coaching sessions back in the Valley.
Phoenix has 15 more games left until the WNBA All-Star break leads into the Olympics, with only a few instances where they have more than one or two days between games. The Mercury’s last game before the break is against the Washington Mystics on July 16 at 8:30 a.m. PT.
Practice Massively Beneficial for Mercury
Without superstar Brittney Griner, Phoenix started the season off well with a 3-1 record followed by a difficult 1-5 stretch in their last six games. On the road, the Mercury are 1-5 this year.
Considering that they have not had much time to work on different aspects of players’ games or tweak certain tactics surrounding the team in general, Phoenix is overdue for some rest and a full practice session back home.
Making room for practice, the Mercury are heading back to Arizona and has one scheduled for Thursday, something head coach Nate Tibbetts believes will help the team.
“Very beneficial, I don’t know if we practiced here in the last 10 or 11 days,” Tibbetts said after Phoenix lost to the Seattle Storm on Tuesday.
Echoing the same sentiment that Tibbetts had claimed, Mercury star Kahleah Copper acknowledged how a practice in this tight period of the WNBA calendar will help herself individually and her teammates.
“I mean shoot, when you can squeeze in a practice throughout this schedule, it’s good,” Copper said. “Work on some stuff, go over some stuff because the schedule is so tight. Being able to get a practice in, it will be good for us.”
Following a home game against the Minnesota Lynx on Friday and going back on the road to face the Dallas Wings on Sunday, six out of the Mercury’s next seven games after that are in Phoenix.
When they have had homecourt advantage, Phoenix continues to embrace the fans and feed off of the energy that the “X-Factor” brings game. Even though they finished 9-31 last year, eight of their wins came at home.
Getting through the recent tough patch of games, the light is at the end of the tunnel for the Mercury as they will look forward to some much-needed rest and practices, two factors that could spark success going forward.
Storm earns first win of Commissioners Cup, take down Mercury 80-62
*Get the BEST Phoenix sports insider information, and exclusive content. SIGN UP HEREÂ to unlock our premium content!*
Reporter Alec Cipollini covers ASU Athletics, Phoenix Mercury and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
