Peddy’s buzzer-beating 3 for Mercury sends Mystics home
BRADENTON, Florida, Sept 16, (AP): Shey Peddy made a buzzerbeating 3-pointer to give the Phoenix Mercury an 85-84 victory over the defending WNBA champions Washington Mystics in the first round of the playoffs.
Fifth-seeded Phoenix moves on to play No. 4 seed Minnesota on Thursday in the second round.
Leilani Mitchell went 1 of 2 from the free-throw line with 5.8 seconds remaining to give Washington an 84-82 lead. After a timeout, Diana Taurasi inbounded it to Skylar Diggins-Smith, who drove the lane and lofted a pass over the defense across the court to the corner. Peddy pumpfaked it to get her defender in the air and calmly beat the buzzer.
Washington brought Peddy in last year after cutting her in training camp when two of the Mystics left to play overseas. She was on the roster as a 30-year-old rookie for about a month before the players returned and she was cut. Coach and general manager Mike Thibault liked having her around so much that he offered her a video and analytics assistant position, which she accepted, and she finished out the championship
season in that role.
When Thibault called her a month before this season started, Peddy assumed it was to see if she wanted to be a coach again. He said the team needed players and offered her a spot on the roster. She played the first month of this season with the Mystics before they cut her. She then signed with the Mercury.
Peddy finished with 12 points for
Phoenix on Tuesday night. DigginsSmith had 24 points, six rebounds and five assists and Taurasi, who improved to 7-0 in single-elimination playoff games, added 23 points. The Mercury went on a 17-0 run over a five-minute span for a 78-73 lead.
Mitchell led Washington with 25 points and Emma Meesseman added 18.
Washington earned a playoff spot on the final day of the regular season and needed to play nearly flawless basketball during the final week of the regular season to even qualify for the postseason.
The Mystics were missing four projected starters from last season’s championship team as Elena Delle Donne was recovering from a back injury and Tina Charles received a medical exemption. Natasha Cloud and LaToya Sanders opted not to play. All are expected back next year.
Meesseman’s steal and fast-break layup capped a 5-0 run to give Washington a 83-82 lead with 38.8 seconds left. And after a timeout, Myisha Hines-Allen drew an offensive foul on Diggins-Smith for Phoenix’s third straight possession with a turnover.
Sun 94, Sky 81
Alyssa Thomas had 26 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, DeWanna Bonner added 23 points and 12 boards, and the seventh-seeded Connecticut Sun beat the No. 6 seed Chicago Sky 94-81 in the opening game of the playoffs.
Connecticut will play either thirdseeded Los Angeles or No. 4 seed Minnesota on Thursday in another single-elimination round.
Thomas beat the halftime buzzer with a hook shot in the lane to tie it at 41, and Connecticut started the second half on a 13-2 run with six points from Jasmine Thomas. Chicago were outscored 27-11 in the game-changing quarter.
Brionna Jones added 12 points and eight rebounds for Connecticut, who overcame a franchise-worst 0-5 start to the season. The Sun had a 4021 advantage on the glass.
Allie Quigley scored 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting, Kahleah Copper added 17 points and Gabby Williams had 16 for Chicago. Courtney Vandersloot had 12 points and six assists.
It was a memorable season for Vandersloot, who became the first player in WNBA history to average 10 assists per game after totaling 220 in the shortened 22-game regular season.
Meanwhile, Courtney Vandersloot got a little help to record her 220th assist of the season, making her the first player in WNBA history to average 10 assists a game.
The one who boosted Vandersloot’s assist total? Her wife and teammate, Allie Quigley.
Vandersloot, the Chicago Sky point guard, finished the 22-game regular season with 219 assists, meaning she averaged 9.95 per game. The Elias Sports Bureau, which is the league’s official statistician, was going to round it up to 10.0 assists. But Elias said Vandersloot wouldn’t have been recognized as reaching the double-digit mark.
The team went through game video to see whether any assists that should have gone to Vandersloot were mistakenly credited to someone else. The Sky found one on Aug. 4 that was given to Quigley.
Chicago sent the video to the league to review and the WNBA agreed, giving the assist to Vandersloot.
Vandersloot said after her last regular-season game that even though the assists would have been rounded up to 10, she wouldn’t have considered herself to have reached the mark. Now she doesn’t have that problem anymore.