"I don't care about my own numbers, but I do care that we've lost the games,'' Taurasi said, "especially the last one.''

The last one was Wednesday's Game 1 of the WNBA finals, when the Shock held the Phoenix star to just 10 points in a 108-100 win over the Mercury. Detroit has won all three matchups with Phoenix this season, holding Taurasi to 10 points a game.

"I have no idea why it has happened,'' Phoenix coach Paul Westhead said. "Diana is a great player who is on her game about 97 percent of the time. It just has happened that three of the bad ones this year came against Detroit, but I expect her to be back on her game in Game 2.''

Taurasi needed 22 shots to score 15 points in an 87-84 home loss on June 22, then had one of the worst games of her career in the rematch on July 8. She went 2-for-12 from the floor and scored just five points in a 111-82 rout.

In Game 1 of the finals, she played just 22 minutes before fouling out.

"I don't know that it is just one thing,'' she said. "But you have to give Detroit a lot of credit - they've got a good team and they've been able to make things tough.''

In all three games, Taurasi has been guarded by Detroit's Katie Smith. Smith is known for her scoring, but she's also one of the Shock's best one-on-one defenders.

"Believe me, everyone around this league knows how good Katie is on defense,'' Shock captain Swin Cash said. "She's a very physical defender, and it is hard to play with someone in your face all of the time.''

Cash knows both Smith and Taurasi very well. She won last year's WNBA title with Smith and two NCAA titles with Taurasi at Connecticut, and all three were on the team that won gold at the Athens Olympics.

"D is very intense, but so is Katie,'' Cash said. "D's going to be ready to go in Game 2, and Katie will be ready to stop her.''

Detroit coach Bill Laimbeer also is a big fan of Smith's defense, but he thinks the key to his team's success against Taurasi comes at the other end of the floor. She had five fouls in both regular-season matchups before fouling out in Game 1.

"Phoenix plays a zone defense where Diana is quite often guarding a big player, and we have a lot of big players,'' he said. "When we are able to get the ball inside, it puts her in a tough position and she's going to pick up fouls.''

The Shock's size advantage was a definite factor in Game 1, even with All-Star Cheryl Ford in street clothes with a knee injury. Detroit's remaining post players - Kara Braxton, Katie Feenstra and Plenette Pierson - combined for 55 points and 29 rebounds.

"We're doing everything we can to get bigger in the next 24 hours - we've been in the weight room seven times already today,'' Westhead joked.

Westhead said his team would stick to his trademark warp-speed offense.

"I'm not a big fan of making major adjustments, because you start focusing on the new things and you forget the things that got you where you are,'' he said. "We're going to do a couple small things to try to stop the bleeding in a couple areas, and then we're going to play the way we play.''

The situation might be worse for Phoenix if Ford is able to play in Game 2, but neither she nor Laimbeer thought that was very likely on Friday. Ford missed the last 13 games of the regular season with the knee problem, and has been playing through worsening pain as the playoffs have gone on.

"It depends how I feel when I roll out of bed in the morning, but I'm still sore,'' she said. "If the game had been today, I couldn't have played.''