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The Phoenix Mercury are set to resume regular-season action after WNBA All-Star weekend, and the league's Olympic break. Following Team USA's win in the 2024 Paris Olympics over the weekend, players around the league will shift their focus to the remainder of the WNBA season. In the case of the Phoenix Mercury, three of their players are fresh off an impressive Olympic run with Team USA.
Brittney Griner, Diana Taurasi and Kahleah Copper all played for Team USA in the Olympics, winning gold against France in a thrilling contest that went down to the wire. While the Griner, Taurasi, Copper trio found success at the Olympic level, they face a tough road ahead with the Phoenix Mercury.
Currently, the team sits in fourth place in the Western Conference, with just the LA Sparks and Dallas Wings below them in the standings. More importantly, however, the team is in sixth-place across the league heading into the final 14 games of the season.
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With the WNBA seeding teams in the playoffs based on power rankings, rather than conference rankings as we see in the NBA, the Mercury are still in the running for a chance to compete for the WNBA Championship so long as they can remain in the top two-thirds of the league.
Sitting just behind them in the standings, however, is Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, who are 2.5 games behind in the standings, along with the Chicago Sky, who are also 2.5 games behind in eighth place.
With the two teams nipping at their heels, the Mercury's stars will need to ride the momentum of the 2024 Paris Olympics into the final stretch of the WNBA season.
Looking at the Phoenix Mercury's remaining schedule
The WNBA will return Thursday with two games tipping off at 5 p.m. Pacific (7 p.m. Eastern), including a pivotal clash between the Phoenix Mercury and Chicago Sky.
The Mercury will then play the Indiana Fever on Friday in the second leg of this week's back-to-back, before then playing the Sky once more on Sunday. With all three teams looking to improve in the standings, the three games over the course of the next four days will be incredibly high-stakes affairs.
From there, the Mercury will have just 12 games left on their schedule, with back-to-back games against the Atlanta Dream on Aug. 21 and Aug. 23. The team will then play the New York Liberty on Aug. 26, and the Minnesota Lynx on Aug. 28 before then playing the defending champions on Sept. 1 to kick off September.
The Phoenix Mercury will then run things back with the Dream on Sept. 3, before playing the DC Mystics on Sept. 5, Seattle Storm on Sept. 7, and the Connecticut Sun on Sept. 13.
In their final three games of the season, the Mercury will first play the Sky once more on Sept. 15 in a game that could be a pivotal one for playoff seedings. They will then meet the LA Sparks on Sept. 17, before their final game of the regular season on Sept. 19 before the start of the playoffs, which are set to begin on Sept. 22.
While the league doesn't have a concrete schedule for the WNBA Playoffs just yet, per WNBA.com, the last possible date for the WNBA Finals is Oct. 20.
