The Phoenix Mercury entered Tuesday night in the seventh spot in the WNBA standings with just two games left before the playoffs, and while there isn’t any drama regarding where they’ll end up in the playoff seeding — they’re locked into the 7-seed as the best they can do is tie the Indiana Fever for sixth, but the Fever have the head-to-head tiebreaker — they still want to head into the postseason on a positive note and have a chance to finish with a .500 season.
The good news was they were up against the league’s worst team in the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday, but they found themselves in a more heated contest than expected, edging out an 85-81 win that featured some fireworks. At the end of the first half, Brittney Griner and Rickea Jackson got tangled up while boxing out on a Mercury free throw and got into a kerfuffle that led to both players being ejected.
Griner clearly didn’t like something Jackson did and swung her elbow up high at Jackson to send a message, but the Sparks’ rookie star didn’t back down from the veteran and the two started jawing before squaring up at each other. As typically happens on the professional basketball court, the two were separated before anything went down, but they did enough to earn early exits from the game. That news came as a surprise to Jackson, who tried to walk back on the court from the tunnel before being informed she’d been tossed.
Phoenix would go on to win the game, as the Sparks weren’t able to hold onto their halftime lead without Jackson as the Mercury dominated the third quarter, 28-10, to take control of the game and held on in the fourth for the win.