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Silver Stars-Mercury Preview

Jun 17, 2010 - 8:42 PM By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN STATS Senior Writer

San Antonio (3-6) at Phoenix (5-5), 10:00 p.m. EDT

The home team won every meeting between the Phoenix Mercury and San Antonio Silver Stars last year in the regular season and the playoffs.

The Western Conference rivals meet for the first time since last year's playoffs when the Mercury look for their first three-game win streak of the season Friday night.

Phoenix (5-5) has eliminated San Antonio (3-6) from the playoffs en route to both its titles, including a high-scoring conference semifinal series last year. The Mercury averaged 103.0 points in two home wins after falling 92-91 in the opener on the road.

Diana Taurasi averaged 23.0 points in the series for Phoenix to outduel Becky Hammon, who averaged 18.3. The superstar guards put on a show in a 100-92 win for Phoenix in the series clincher as Taurasi scored 30 and Hammon had 29.

Taurasi is again among the league's scoring leaders with 21.4 points per game. She was only needed to score 18 in 19 minutes in a 116-84 rout of Tulsa on Saturday.

"We are getting a little sense on how good we can be," Taurasi said. "We can't be complacent. We can't be happy with winning two in a row. But on the other side, it feels good to go out there and you know the hard work and kind of learning from our losses, putting them into playing games and seeing success."

Candice Dupree made all nine shots for a season-high 18 points and Penny Taylor and Taylor Lilley each added 14 as Phoenix shot 53.1 percent, held a 42-32 rebounding edge and committed a season-low nine turnovers.

"It's the turnovers that was the problem before," coach Corey Gaines said. "We're starting to make the easy play, easy pass, shot there, real simple basketball."

This figures to be a difficult weekend for San Antonio, which also visits league-leading Seattle on Sunday.

Hammon is off to a slow start, averaging 13.3 points - her lowest mark since 2002. She missed two games with a strained right quad before averaging 14.0 points in the next two.

"Becky's back on court," coach Sandy Brondello said. "When you have a key player out, you don't get to where you want to be as quickly. She's back and she's getting healthy."

The Silver Stars fell 90-83 at Atlanta on Sunday and know they need a better defensive effort against a Mercury team averaging a league-leading 92.2 points.

"This is a team that has put up the most points at this stage of the season," Brondello said. "So we really have to be on our game for 40 minutes."