The Phoenix Mercury will jump right from the microwave into the frying pan Sunday night when they complete a season-opening road back-to-back with a visit to the Golden State Valkyries in San Francisco.
One day after the Valkyries traveled north to secure a 91-80 win at Seattle on the WNBA’s Opening Night, the Mercury stunned the Las Vegas Aces 99-66 on the defending champion’s home court.
Golden State and Phoenix will return to the court on Sunday night.
The Valkyries, an expansion team that snuck into the playoffs last year, were in such disarray in the preseason that coach Natalie Nakase scheduled just one preseason game so that she’d have time to reintroduce her players to one another.
Still, the club opened without last year’s top pick, Juste Jocyte, who is completing an obligation to her Spanish League team, and one of last year’s top players, Iliana Rupert, who is pregnant. The Valkyries then lost starting guard Tiffany Hayes to a dislocated pinkie finger and key reserve Cecilia Zandalasini to a concussion.
All four have been ruled out of Sunday’s game, but Nakase, the WNBA’s Coach of the Year last season, expects a better performance than in Seattle.
“My expectations are high for us defensively,” Nakase said after the win, during which last year’s top defensive team statistically allowed 24- and 27-point quarters.
“We just have to be smarter. There’s a lot of corrections that we can make. They know it, too; they know that’s not our best defensive effort.
“But I also believe we’re not even there yet as a team, because some of the players have only come to three or four practices. So I told them, ‘I’m going to give you guys a space to evolve in the next couple of days.'”
Janelle Salaun had 20 points and Veronica Burton added 16 in the win.
While the Valkyries had familiarity in mind as they took the court, the Mercury was more dialed in on the opposition. After all, not only had they lost to the Aces in the 2025 WNBA Finals, but the team then had to endure Las Vegas’ ring ceremony before the nationally-televised affair.
Alyssa Thomas led the way with 20 points, but the Mercury had a secret weapon available for the rematch – Jovana Nogic. The Serbian forward who had been playing in Russia set the tone on the visitors’ ceremony-crashing effort with 19 points — all in the first half.
Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts credited the league’s new higher-paying collective bargaining agreement for attracting a higher level of talent to the WNBA this season.
“This is a player that hasn’t come over, because maybe it wasn’t worth it, right? A lot of these European players,” Tibbetts noted to the media after the win. “(Nogic has) been someone that our front office has talked about the last couple of years. She had an awesome start; I’m really happy for her.”
–Field Level Media
