Sky vs. Mercury: Sydney Taylor Scores 10 Straight in the Third as Chicago Wins 77-66 in Phoenix

For a few minutes of the third quarter on Tuesday night, the Chicago Sky's entire offense was a rookie named Sydney Taylor, and nobody in the building had a better idea. She scored her team's first 10 points after halftime, answered everything the Phoenix Mercury tried, and by the end of the period the lead had grown to 12.

Chicago won 77-66 at Mortgage Matchup Center, getting 16 from Taylor, 11 points and six assists from Natasha Cloud and a defensive effort that made Phoenix look allergic to the basketball. The Mercury's best news came from the record books: no player in WNBA history had ever combined 8,000 points, 3,000 rebounds and 500 steals until DeWanna Bonner got there on this night. That's a gorgeous line on a career page. Tuesday's box score was considerably less fun.

One Lead Change, Then a Long Night

Phoenix led by as many as five early, and it was 9-7 Mercury when the Sky rattled off eight straight to go up 15-9. That was the only lead change of the game. Chicago went on to lead for more than 36 minutes, which is the kind of number that makes a home crowd start checking on dinner plans.

A 24-15 first quarter set the tone. Phoenix did win the second 16-13 and sat within 37-31 at the break, close enough to believe the first quarter had been the outlier. Then Taylor came out of the locker room and took that idea apart, and a 19-13 third pushed it to 56-44.

The fourth is where it got briefly weird. Chicago's lead reached 20, and it was still 71-52 with 4:54 to play. Then the Sky went stale, and the Mercury started hitting everything. Kahleah Copper, Alyssa Thomas, Valeriane Ayayi and Bonner all got in on a 14-3 surge, and Copper's 25-footer with 1:02 left made it 74-66. For a team that had looked dead five minutes earlier, an eight-point game with a minute left felt like a pulse.

The Rookie, the Vet and the Group Project

Taylor finished 6 of 11 from the field and 3 of 7 from three in 23 minutes. Five fouls and four turnovers kept her from a bigger night, but the scoring is getting hard to treat as a surprise. The Sky say she's averaging just under 18 points on 51 percent shooting over her last nine games, which isn't what rookies are supposed to do.

Cloud was the steadying hand, knocking down three threes to go with four rebounds, two steals and a team-best six assists in 32 minutes. Kamilla Cardoso gave Chicago a little of everything: four blocks, four assists, four rebounds and nine points. Azura Stevens grabbed 10 boards and scored nine of her own. Another rookie, Aicha Coulibaly, may have had the quietest great game on the floor: eight points and a career-best seven rebounds in only 14 minutes, with a game-high plus-14 to show for it. And with Skylar Diggins out with a right knee issue, Courtney Vandersloot made her first start of the season and scored seven.

Seven different Sky players scored at least seven points. In a season when Chicago has lost plenty of shootouts, this looked more like a team that had figured out how to share the load.

Phoenix can't say the same. Copper spent the night as the one kid actually doing the group project, scoring 25 on 9-of-19 shooting with four threes against the franchise she used to play for. Bonner added 12 points and seven rebounds. Thomas stuffed the box with 11 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals, but also turned it over five times. Beyond that it got thin in a hurry. Lexi Held went scoreless in 27 minutes, and Monique Akoa Makani provided all nine bench points. The other three Phoenix reserves combined to go 0 for 7.

Sheldon Ends the Suspense

The Mercury had the ball, the momentum and a crowd of 9,586 suddenly paying attention. What they didn't have was a stop. Back at the other end, the ball found Jacy Sheldon, who hadn't scored all night. She rose up from 24 feet off a Cardoso pass and buried it with 43.5 seconds left. That made it 77-66, and it turned out to be the final score and her only points of the game.

It's a fun way to go 1 for 3 from the field. Players can spend whole careers looking for that kind of return on one shot. And it mattered, because a Phoenix stop there would have meant an actual final minute instead of a formality.

Stats That Matter

• 21-9: Chicago's edge in assists. The Mercury made 20 field goals and assisted fewer than half.
• 25-15: Points off turnovers, with Chicago feasting on 20 Phoenix giveaways.
• 11-7: Made threes, on 41 percent shooting for the Sky and 29 percent for the Mercury.
• 25-9: Bench scoring, which was the difference in this game and then some.
• 30-22: Chicago in the paint, with Cardoso's four blocks protecting the other end.

What It Means

Chicago moves to 7-14 and 4-7 on the road. It's the Sky's third win in their last five games, and it stops a two-game slide that came against Las Vegas. They also evened the season series, after Phoenix won 91-83 in this same building in May. Next up is a Friday game in Los Angeles.

Phoenix falls to 8-14 and 3-7 at home. That number stings, since the Mercury had won four of their previous five and looked like they might be climbing out of an early hole. They'll get a quick shot at a reset with Indiana coming in on Thursday.

Solo Album, Full Band

Ten straight points is a solo album. Seven players with at least seven points is a full band. Chicago needed both on Tuesday, and that's the encouraging part for a team sitting at 7-14. The Sky don't have to wait for one person to save them. They've got a rookie who wants the mic and enough people behind her to keep the song going when she sits down with five fouls.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press. Team notes from the Chicago Sky's game recap.