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Four years later, the Shock finds itself on the other side of that divide. Having added the 2006 Championship to the one won in 2003, Detroit has the opportunity to emerge as something of a dynasty by winning this year. Standing between the Shock and that goal is the Phoenix Mercury, which has followed the WNBA's longest active postseason drought with a dominating romp through the Western Conference en route to the Finals.
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Tamika Catchings suffered a possible torn Achilles, knocking her out of Game 3 just before halftime.
Meanwhile, the Mercury swept into the Finals, needing only four games to dispatch with the Storm and San Antonio. Phoenix continued a torrid finish to the regular season that has seen the team win 15 of its last 16 games. At times during that stretch, the Mercury has looked entirely unbeatable.
Now fatigue is on Phoenix's side, having finished up the Western Conference Finals on Saturday while Detroit had to go back-to-back to win Games 2 and 3 against the Fever to advance. The schedule does the Shock no favors in Game 1, which will be played scarcely more than 48 hours after the end of the Eastern Conference Finals. The schedule lets up thereafter, but the Mercury has a great opportunity to steal Game 1 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Before the Western Conference Finals, I described the matchup as a pace mismatch pitting the high-octane Mercury against the slowpoke Silver Stars. You might think the Finals are more of the same, given Detroit's reputation for slugging it out in the halfcourt. However, the Shock actually played at the league's second-fastest pace in 2007, trailing only Phoenix (which lapped the rest of the pack in the WNBA when it came to pace).
Want an even bigger surprise? Playing a fast team might not be good news for Paul Westhead's charges. Conventional wisdom has it the way to stop the Mercury is to create a half-court game. I don't disagree, but Phoenix has had far more success this season against slow-paced teams. The Mercury went 21-4 against teams whose pace was below league average, just 6-7 against teams that played faster than average. That might just be a fluke, but it also might indicate that Phoenix, not its opponents, was able to control tempo in those kind of pace mismatches.
Certainly Detroit had control of all facets of the last meeting between these two teams, on July 8 at The Palace. Down two at halftime, the Shock outscored Phoenix 40-19 in the third quarter, tying a WNBA record for points in a period. Six Detroit players scored double figures, two recorded double-doubles, the team shot 49.4% from the field and 12-of-22 (54.5%) from three-point range and tied a franchise record by running up 111 points in Phoenix's worst loss of the season (by 29 points).
The earlier matchup at the US Airways Center saw both teams play without an All-Star - Cheryl Ford for Detroit and Cappie Pondexter for Phoenix. The Mercury led by as many as 16 in the third quarter, but mustered just nine points in the fourth quarter as Detroit rallied for an 87-84 victory.
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Detroit's success or failure in this series, then, will be predicated on scoring from long distance. That hasn't always been a Shock strength, and certainly not in this postseason so far. The Shock has 25 threes in six games - only two more than in the two regular-season matchups with Phoenix - on 33.8% shooting. Katie Smith, who has made more three-pointers as a professional than any other woman, has connected on just eight of her 35 three attempts, a 22.9% clip. Deanna Nolan's hot shooting (she's 13-of-24, 52.4%, from three in the playoffs) has only partly offset Smith's slump.
As ESPN's Doris Burke pointed out repeatedly during Game 3 against New York, there are still few players you'd rather have take a big shot than Smith, who always seems to be at her best with the game on the line. However, at 33, her poor playoff shooting might be more than a slump; she only hit 31.1% of her three-pointers in the regular season. Still, the potential of Smith getting hot will keep Westhead up at night.
If Smith can't find the distance, Bill Laimbeer might find more playing time for Shannon Johnson, Detroit's leading scorer against Phoenix in the regular season at 18.5 ppg with nine three-pointers, or rookie Ivory Latta, a 44.9% shooter from three during the regular season. The Shock went small against Phoenix during the regular season (not by choice in Ford's absence), which could mean extra action for Detroit's backup guards as well as Sixth Woman Award winner Plenette Pierson, a better fit for the fast pace than the Shock's plodding centers.
While they came up empty in the Western Conference Finals, the Silver Stars did put together a solid blueprint for beating Phoenix: Get hot from three-point range on offense (the Stars hit 25 in the two games) and get the Mercury into a half-court game. With Pondexter, Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor, Phoenix has plenty of options when running its half-court offense, but the reason this strategy works is because the Mercury's shot selection occasionally goes awry. (During Game 2 against San Antonio, this was particularly true of Taurasi, who forced shots and hit just 2-of-8 from three-point range.)
The other, more obvious reason it's critical to take away Phoenix's fast break is because the Mercury is not merely good in transition but otherworldly. No one this side of the U.S. entry in the Men's FIBA Americas Championship runs a better fast break than the Mercury, which does so with such ruthless efficiency as to destroy the opposition's spirit. But, as the saying goes, you can't run without the ball. Much more so than Phoenix's first two opponents in the playoffs, Detroit has the ability to pound the Mercury on the glass. The Shock had a 98-57 rebounding advantage during the two regular-season meetings.
Verdict: The Mercury enters the WNBA Finals on a tear, but has yet to face as complete an opponent as Detroit during the postseason. After nearly stumbling against the Liberty, Detroit played good basketball against a tough Indiana squad that was the Shock's equal when at full strength. The Mercury's chance is to steal Game 1, then hope that Detroit will continue to misfire from long distance with those misses turning into runouts and Phoenix fast-break points at the other end. More likely, however, the Shock will find the range against the Mercury zone and pad that performance with regular second-chance points. I can see Phoenix extending this series the distance, but winning on a hostile court in Game 5 is a lot to ask.
Detroit in 5
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