Kahleah Copper and the Phoenix Mercury will look to break a season-long road struggle on Sunday afternoon as they visit the slumping Dallas Wings.
Dallas (3-8) has lost its last four games, while Phoenix (5-6) is just 1-5 on the road this season.
The game matches up two of the leading scorers in the WNBA, as Dallas’s Arike Ogunbowale is second in the league in scoring (26.6 points per game), while Copper is third (23.5).
Copper comes into the game off a 34-point outing in an 81-80 win over the Minnesota Lynx on Friday. Copper’s 3-point shot with less than a second remaining was the difference in the game and marked her fourth 30-point scoring effort of the season.
She admitted that the final play was initially drawn up for guard Diana Taurasi, but the latter asked coach Nate Tibbetts to run the play for Copper.
Copper had 32 points in the last meeting with the Wings, a 107-92 loss on May 25.
Dallas would likely welcome a return to that type of scoring output. Not only have the Wings lost their last four games, but they failed to top 81 points at any point in that string. In the May 25 matchup, Dallas rode a massive effort from Ogunbowale. The All-Star guard made seven threes and dropped 40 points in that game.
The Wings’ last game was an 81-72 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks on Friday. The Wings shot just under 40 percent (29 of 73) from the field in that game, including a brutal 2-for-17 from 3-point range.
Dallas continues to play without injured forwards Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard. Ogunbowale was 0-for-9 from 3-point range, but she did tie for a game-high of 22 points.
The Mercury got an additional boost on Friday with the return of All-Star center Brittney Griner, who had missed the season to date with a toe injury. Griner started and played 21 minutes, scoring 11 points and hauling in four rebounds in the victory over the Lynx.
