PHOENIX -- Phoenix Mercury forward Satou Sabally exited Wednesday's 90-88 loss in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals with an apparent head injury and did not return to the game.
With 4:26 left in the fourth quarter, Sabally's head slammed into an Aces defender's knee as she fell to the floor chasing a rebound, and she immediately grabbed her face.
After spending an extended time on the ground, Sabally initially tried to get up before having to be helped back to the floor. She was eventually assisted off the court by a teammate and Mercury staffer.
Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said he did not see Sabally in the locker room postgame and did not have an update on her status. The 6-foot-4 so-called "unicorn" was the Mercury's second-leading scorer on Wednesday, finishing with 24 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists in 31 minutes. In her first year in the Valley after starting her career in Dallas, she was the Mercury's top scorer in the regular season (16.3 PPG) and playoffs (19.0).
Phoenix was down 10 at the time of Sabally's injury but managed to tie the score in the closing minutes despite trailing by as many as 17. Four-time MVP A'ja Wilson delivered the game-winning jump shot with 0.9 seconds left, and Phoenix's DeWanna Bonner missed a good look that would have sent it to overtime.
"We're not into moral victories," Tibbetts said. "This is a game that we wanted to get, needed to get." The Aces are now up 3-0 in the WNBA's first-ever best-of-seven Finals series.
"I don't know how many teams have come down from 0-3. Not many, right? So I'm not going to sugarcoat that," Tibbetts said. "We've got a tough road ahead, but we've got to take it one game at a time. This group has been a group that has continued to compete at a high level. We're going to expect that. We're in front of our fans. We've got a certain level of pride that we're going to continue to keep fighting."
Kahleah Copper, the 2021 Finals MVP with the Chicago Sky, sparked the Mercury comeback with 11 straight points after Sabally went down. Bonner, a two-time champion with the Mercury in 2009 and 2014, then scored five consecutive points for the Mercury to close the game.
But Phoenix's surge in the fourth quarter wouldn't have been necessary had the team not played, in perennial MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas' words, "unacceptable" first-half defense.
The Aces put up 55 first-half points, the most the Mercury allowed in any half this postseason, and allowed nine Las Vegas 3-pointers, including seven that were uncontested.
"It's how we should be playing from the start," Thomas said of the second half. "It took us too long to wake up and play defense. I think the second half is our basketball and how we play, so shame on us for not coming out the way that we need to come out."
Added Copper: "We've just got to play harder, get the 50-50 balls. I think that was hurting us in the first half. Offensive rebounds, there were long rebounds, the guards were flying in and getting them, and it was 3s."
The Mercury have shown resilience throughout the postseason, coming back from 0-1 deficits to win their best-of-three first-round series against the defending champion New York Liberty and then their best-of-five semifinal series against the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx. Phoenix also erased a 20-point deficit in Game 2 of the semifinals and a 14-point one in Game 4 of that round to beat the Lynx 3-1.
They hope to channel that same energy as they face elimination in Friday's Game 4 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
"It's pride for me, it's just like hell, no," Copper said on wanting to avoid a sweep. "I'm a competitor, that's just what it is."
"You've just got to keep fighting," Bonner added. "You're not just going to give up. It's hard to get here. So we're going to continue to fight to the very end. I feel like that's what we've been doing all playoffs."