Phoenix Mercury forward Camille Little came off the bench to score 11 points, grab six rebounds and block three shots in a win.
PHOENIX — “Just play basketball.” This is what Sandy Brondello wanted from her unsteady Phoenix Mercury squad heading into an important home meeting with the Dallas Wings on Wednesday afternoon.
Throughout the year, Brondello has tried and failed to find lineup combinations and game plans to generate energy and intensity from her roster. Each big win is met with a puzzling loss, each difficult road trip met with a victorious return home. It’s been hard to gauge.
Have the Mercury made it too hard on themselves? Probably. Injuries only go so far as excuses, and while there are plenty of those to go around, this is still a roster that has won at the highest level for many years.
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Just play basketball. Rarely are coaches so simple in their demands, but as Brondello spoke after practice Tuesday morning about what she needed to see, the message was plain.
Phoenix answered the bell Wednesday against Dallas, winning, 69-64, but also playing with more decisiveness and effort than they had in a while.
“Our fight today was fantastic, and we grinded it out, we found a way,” Brondello said after the win.
Without Diana Taurasi or Sancho Lyttle, two incredibly smart veteran players, it counts as a surprise that Phoenix pulled it out. The other veteran big, the one who has only been intermittently available this year for Phoenix, Camille Little, stepped in like she had done it once or twice over her 13-year career.
No longer the 3-and-D matchup problem she was in her prime, Little got in the game to enforce her will physically and make smart plays. Her minus-4 in 22 minutes tells the story like a child recounting a trip to the toy story. You’ve gotta dig a little deeper here.
Little’s 11 points, six rebounds and three blocks also included a clutch free throw with under a minute to go to put Phoenix up by a point, as well as the decisive rebound to end a late Dallas possession.
“She’s smart, she has a high basketball IQ, she gets to the right spots, she’s good defensively,” Brondello said, as if she could go on forever. “She was critical for us.”
Little closed the game for the Mercury to match the size of the Wings’ front line. Rookie Alanna Smith played a few decent minutes in the first half but is only just starting to gain confidence as a pro, and with starter Essence Carson not quite big enough to match Dallas’ wings, there weren’t many options for Brondello late in the game. Despite Little playing center most of the night, she finished at the 4 alongside Brittney Griner, forming a tandem we might see more of going forward.
“A lot of things go unnoticed but a lot of things do get noticed,” Griner said of Little’s game. “All the bumping, and moving and being physical that she does for us, going to the boards, making plays.”
All that takes a toll on Little, but it’s the role she came back to Phoenix to play. Little recently announced this would be her final season in the WNBA at age 34, and her body responded with requisite soreness and aching, as if to tell her she made the right call.
“Like a car that hasn’t moved in a month and all the bells and whistles go off, that’s what my body’s been feeling like for a while,” Little said, but she feels as good now as she has all year.
Halfway through the season, the onus is on the preseason championship favorites to kick it into high gear and replicate gritty performances like these on a nightly basis.
Phoenix needs to find combinations that can make things simple for their stars — Griner, DeWanna Bonner and ultimately Taurasi when she returns. The team’s young bench hasn’t consistently provided support for the stars, but in a finally healthy Little, the Mercury may have found the right stopgap.
“I just want to be consistent and do whatever we need,” Little said.
To put it another way: Just play basketball.
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