Mercury vs. Valkyries: Kahleah Copper's 27 and Alyssa Thomas' Perfect Fourth Erase a 13-Point Deficit

Kahleah Copper had just fouled out with 1:45 left. Phoenix challenged the call and lost. Nine seconds later, Kayla Thornton buried a 3 to tie the game at 82, and a Mercury team that had trailed by 13 in the third quarter had every excuse in the world to fade quietly into the desert night.

Instead, DeWanna Bonner stepped to the line and put Phoenix ahead for good, and the Mercury walked out of Mortgage Matchup Center with a 91-89 win over the Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday night. Copper had 27 points before she sat, Alyssa Thomas added 25 with nine rebounds and eight assists, and both teams got a full-blooded reintroduction to basketball after the All-Star break.

Big Swings in Both Directions

Phoenix struck first. Bonner hit back-to-back deep 3s to start an 11-0 run, and the Mercury led 21-13 before settling for 21-18 after one. Then Golden State, playing without All-Star starter Gabby Williams, turned the second quarter into a clinic. The Valkyries closed the half on a 21-3 run, with Cecilia Zandalasini scoring 11 in the period, a career high for a quarter according to her team, and it was 46-34 at the break.

The margin reached 13 at 64-51 late in the third, and that's when Copper took the game personally. She scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the period, including the final seven of a 9-0 Phoenix run, and a Tiffany Hayes layup at the end left it 66-60.

Golden State pushed it back to 71-62 on Laeticia Amihere's 3 early in the fourth. Then the Mercury scored 11 straight. Natasha Mack had two floaters, Thomas had a three-point play, Valeriane Ayayi scored on a feed from Thomas, and Thomas' driving layup with 5:11 left put Phoenix up 73-71.

The next few minutes were a pure grind. Thomas and Copper kept running the same two-player game, Hayes and Veronica Burton kept answering, and neither team led by more than three until Copper's sixth foul changed the math.

The Perfect Fourth

The turning point wasn't one play so much as one player refusing to miss. Thomas scored 15 points on 6-of-6 shooting in the fourth quarter, and every one of those baskets came when Phoenix needed something at the rim. After Bonner's two free throws and another from Ayayi made it 85-82, Thomas' 5-footer with 47.8 seconds left gave the Mercury a five-point cushion, and it was the only cushion they would get.

They needed all of it. Janelle Salaun went to the line three separate times in the last 46 seconds, making 7 of 8 and twice drawing fouls on 3-point tries. She missed the third shot of her first trip from deep, down 87-84, and that one miss turned out to be the game. Her three at the 5.6-second mark cut it to 90-89, Bonner made one of two, and nothing else went in.

Stars, Fouls and a Season Record

"I loved the way we came out defensively to start the game," Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. "We got down 12 at the half and didn't hang our heads. We stayed with it." His stars made sure of it. Copper shot 9 of 14 with three 3s for her 27, her 15th game of the season with at least 20 points, according to the team. Thomas went 10 of 14 and accounted for half of Phoenix's 40 points in the paint. Bonner had 17 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks for her second double-double of the season, per the team, and Ayayi made just one field goal but went 8 of 10 at the line for 10 points and a game-best plus-17.

For Golden State, Zandalasini finished with 16 on 6-of-17 shooting before fouling out. Burton added 15 and five assists. Kaila Charles also fouled out, but not before putting up 10 points and a season-best 10 boards, good for just the second double-double of her career and the first since 2021. Laeticia Amihere scored 12 in 13 minutes, and Hayes had 11 with five assists. Salaun scored 13, and her 3-pointer in the third quarter was her 69th of the season, the most ever in a single season by a WNBA reserve, according to the Valkyries. Six Valkyries reached double figures, and all nine who played scored.

Stats That Matter

• 43-19: Free-throw attempts, with Phoenix making 32 and Golden State 15. The Valkyries say the 43 tied a WNBA season high.
• 34: Golden State's fouls. Four of its five starters finished with at least five.
• 57-43: Phoenix's scoring edge after halftime.
• 12 of 33: Golden State from 3-point range, against 5 of 16 for Phoenix. All 12 were assisted, per the team.
• 6 of 6: Thomas from the field in the fourth quarter.

What It Means

Phoenix is 11-18, 5-9 at home, and our recount matches the AP: three straight wins following a five-game losing streak. The team calls this its largest comeback win of the season. New York visits on Saturday.

Golden State fell to 19-9, 8-5 on the road, with back-to-back losses. The Valkyries had come in 9-1 over their previous 10 games, as the Mercury noted in their own recap. The AP has the Valkyries a half-game behind second-place Las Vegas. They still took the season series 2-1, and Toronto comes to Chase Center on Sunday night.

Louder Than the Record

Eleven wins doesn't usually buy a team a building that sounds like this. Copper heard it anyway. "I think the X-Factor is the best in the league," she said of the home crowd. "It felt like a playoff atmosphere, for sure." Phoenix won without its leading scorer for the final 1:45, took 17 fewer 3s than Golden State and spent the night at the line. It wasn't elegant. It also wasn't close to quiet, and for a team trying to climb, that counts for something.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Additional context from the Associated Press and the Golden State Valkyries. Postgame quotes as reported by the Phoenix Mercury.