Eyeing spot in WNBA Playoffs, former UConn star Diana Taurasi and Phoenix Mercury face Connecticut Sun in pair of games this week

Less than a week after Sue Bird took the floor for likely the final time in front of Connecticut fans, her former UConn backcourt mate and good friend Diana Taurasi heads to Mohegan Sun Arena for a pair of important games.

Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury (13-17) will face the Connecticut Sun (20-10) on Tuesday and Thursday. Both contests are set to tip off at 7 p.m.; the first will air on NESN+ / NBA TV and the second will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.

At age 40, Taurasi continues to play at an elite level on the offensive end of the floor. She has averaged 17.3 points, 4 assists and 3.4 rebounds in 30 games for the Mercury this season.

Taurasi has scored at least 25 points on six occasions, including a 30-point performance against the Las Vegas Aces on July 28 that made her the first player in WNBA history to score at least 30 points at age 40. She is just the third player in NBA or WNBA history to do so, joining elite company alongside Michael Jordan and Dirk Nowitzki.

Taurasi made five 3-pointers in that game, one of eight times she’s done so this year — four of which came this past month.

The highest scoring performance of the year for Taurasi came in the Mercury’s first meeting against the Sun on June 3 at Footprint Center in Phoenix. She went off for 32 points, four assists, three rebounds and two steals, but couldn’t will her team to victory.

Connecticut trailed by 13 points with 6:30 left in the fourth quarter but outscored Phoenix 24-7 the rest of the way to pull out the improbable win. Reigning WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones scored 11 of her 24 points for the Sun during that stretch.

Nearly two months later, the two teams find themselves in opposite positions as the regular season winds down.

The Sun, sitting in third place in the WNBA standings behind the Chicago Sky and Las Vegas Aces, have already clinched a playoff berth. Meanwhile, the Mercury are one of six teams clawing for the remaining three spots in the postseason (there are eight total playoff spots, and the Storm and Mystics also clinched over the weekend).

Phoenix currently sits in seventh place, half a game behind the Dallas Wings (13-16). That would buy it a playoff spot if the season ended today, but with six games left in the regular season — including two against the Sun and one against the Sky — nothing is certain. Especially since the Los Angeles Sparks (12-17), Atlanta Dream (12-18), Minnesota Lynx (12-19) and the New York Liberty (11-18) are all within 1.5 games.

The last time Taurasi and the Mercury missed the playoffs was in 2019. To avoid that happening again, they’ll need strong performances from Taurasi and their other stars against the Sun this week.

Skylar Diggins-Smith leads Phoenix in points (20 per game), assists (5.8 per game) and steals (1.5 per game), while also adding 4.3 rebounds per game. Brianna Turner anchors the defense with 6.9 rebounds per game and 1.6 blocks per game, while Diamond DeShields and Sophie Cunningham are each averaging at least 12.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per contest.

Taurasi said before the start of the season that she still plans on “playing for a while.” She was again asked about her retirement plans in recent weeks leading up to her final regular season matchup against Bird and the Storm on July 22.

“Seeing how happy she is going through her retirement years made me really think about that long winter,” Taurasi said, per ESPN. “When the season ends, I’ll be a free agent and I’ll see what’s best for me. I don’t know what that is right now.

“It’s always something that as you get older as an athlete, you start thinking about and you start really kind of bouncing off ideas on [wife] Penny [Taylor] and my close friends and people that I really respect and trust their opinion.”

The latest on Kia Nurse

When Tina Charles departed the Mercury in June as part of a contract divorce that saw her land in Seattle, it left Phoenix with just one other UConn product besides Taurasi on the roster: Kia Nurse.

Nurse, a 6-foot guard, tore her right ACL in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces last season. She’s been rehabbing the injury since then and has yet to make her 2022 debut.

The two-time national champion told The Courant in June that rehab was going well and she planned to make her return to the court in the second half of the season, but she didn’t offer a timeline. Nurse was still listed as out in the most recent injury report for Phoenix.

Lila Bromberg can be reached at lbromberg@courant.com and @LilaBBromberg on Twitter.