This is the kind of late-July series that can either reset a season or simply underline how badly two teams need one. Sun Vs Mercury has that feel. The Connecticut Sun arrive in Phoenix with a 6-18 record. The Phoenix Mercury are 8-17 and carrying a four-game losing streak into Friday night’s opener. Neither side is in a position to act smug here.
But the headline is obvious: Brittney Griner is back in Phoenix for only the second time since her 11-year Mercury career ended. That alone gives this two-game set some edge. There is always a little extra charge when a player returns to a former home, and Griner’s numbers suggest she is not showing up merely for the nostalgia tour. She came into this matchup off a 20-point effort in Connecticut’s 90-87 home win over the Portland Fire on Tuesday, and that followed a strong run of production since joining the Sun as a free agent last offseason.
Griner has given Connecticut a real spine
The easy lazy take is to treat Griner like a name from the past. The facts do not really support that. She has averaged 13.9 points and 1.8 blocked shots over 14 contests, and her best nights have still carried real force. On July 6, she dropped 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Connecticut’s 90-89 win at the Minnesota Lynx. On July 24, 2025, she posted 17 points and eight rebounds in a 90-79 victory when she returned to Phoenix as a member of the Atlanta Dream. This is not a player drifting quietly out of the picture. It is a player still capable of swinging games.
And that matters because Connecticut has not exactly been cruising. The Sun started 2-15, then won four of their last seven games, which is at least a sign of life rather than outright collapse. That is a low bar, sure, but this season has been built on low bars. If Connecticut are going to drag themselves into anything resembling respectability, they need the sort of consistent interior presence Griner can provide.
Phoenix has no luxury of sentimentality
The Mercury do not get to spend this series admiring the occasion. They lost 104-100 at Minnesota on Monday, which extended the sense that they are not managing games well enough. A 8-17 record and four straight defeats do not leave much room for romantic framing. Alyssa Thomas, who spent 11 seasons with the Sun before joining Phoenix, put it bluntly: the biggest thing is staying together, because nobody is going to feel sorry for them. She is right. Nobody is handing out sympathy points in the standings.
That is what makes this series interesting beyond the reunion angle. Connecticut have found a little bit of momentum, while Phoenix are trying to stop the slide before it turns into something worse. The Sun are not suddenly transformed because they have won four of seven. The Mercury are not suddenly doomed because they have lost four in a row. But the pressure is real on both sides, and this matchup will show who can handle it better.
Griner’s second Phoenix return gives the series its emotional core. The standings give it urgency. Put those together and Friday night becomes more than a routine meeting between two struggling teams. It becomes a small but telling test of which side can live with the moment and which one keeps looking like it is waiting for help that is not coming.
