Target Center was braced for closure. The 10,824-strong crowd sensed a second straight semifinal round triumph after the Lynx built a 16-point advantage at the break. The blue and green had never lost a match carrying a double-digit lead into the second half — not once in 61 instances since they were founded in 1999. History was clearly on their side. All the same, the Mercury refused to fold in the face of seeming certainty. And lo and behold, the hosts somehow managed to snatch defeat from the throes of victory; when the final buzzer sounded, they were too stunned to consider their wounds as anything but self-inflicted.
To be sure, the Mercury did a lot of heavy lifting in forging the improbable comeback. Their resilience was apparent after halftime and until overtime came and went. In the third quarter, they reeled off a 12-0 run to breathe life to their moribund campaign. And from there, momentum seeped away from the Lynx, first slowly, then all at once. They simply could not be denied, with Satou Sabally scoring 11 of her 24 in the fourth and Alyssa Thomas once again impacting proceedings with 19 markers and 13 dimes.
For all intents, however, it was the Mercury bench — so often overlooked in postseason battles — that made the difference; it put up a whopping 25, with the defining three courtesy of Sami Whitcomb’s basket with 4.3 seconds left in regulation to force the extra period. For the Lynx, meanwhile, the unraveling was swift. Four turnovers in barely a minute turned control into chaos, part of a larger lapse head coach Cheryl Reeve lamented in the post-mortem. The cushion evaporated and any rhythm was stunted as confidence gave way to hesitation in the crunch.
Certainly, the manner in which the Mercury stole the win underscored the fragility of playoff leads. There are no guarantees. In any case, Game Three at the PHX arena will provide yet another test. They will lean on belief even as the Lynx aim to regain control of the series. And who is to disabuse them of the notion that they can take the measure of the heavy favorites? After all, they have already proven that they can be burned and scarred, and yet remain unbroken.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
