The Phoenix Mercury have a tough road ahead, but don’t expect them to succumb to the pressure at hand.

With 10 games to go, the Mercury are still scratching, shooting and striving with every last ounce of energy to make the 2006 WNBA Playoffs.

Granted, things were made even more complicated with Tuesday’s leg injury to Penny Taylor, who was single-handedly carrying the Mercury to what was almost a defensive lockdown victory over the Seattle Storm. But as Taylor fell to the hardwood and then walked slowly to the locker room on crutches, the Mercury’s hopes of winning the game fell, too.

The team had a tremendous amount of pressure before Taylor went down. The Mercury haven’t made the playoffs since the turn of the millennium. Taylor had recently returned to her potent offensive and stifling defensive ways, and the Mercury were rolling. Now it is up to the group that started the season without Taylor, to once again take the reins and try for a possible playoff berth.

Do the Mercury feel the pressure?

One would think so.

But with a two-time All-Star and scoring leader at the helm, anything is possible. Diana Taurasi says she and her teammates aren’t feeling the heat yet.

“We don’t look at it as pressure,” Taurasi said. “Everything happens for a reason and this year we have started playing well and every game we look at it like another little game.”

Penny Taylor agrees with the old sports cliché that you have to take every game at face value.

“For us, I think it is very important to take it one game at a time and not think too far ahead,” the Aussie forward said. “I think when you look too far ahead, it adds a little too much pressure and it can get daunting.”

The Mercury have several outside influences working against them currently: time, injuries, a majority of games down the stretch against opponents who are above .500 and five years of playoff absences.

Prior to her right leg injury, Taylor said that she didn’t feel “any pressure at all” to lead the team to the postseason after joining the team on July 1st for the playoff push. But just hours before going down herself, she did say that the team’s string of injuries was making things tougher on the court for the Mercury.

“Unfortunately with a few injuries to Kamila Vodichkova and Cappie Pondexter, we feel that pressure more than anything to have all our players out there,” Taylor said prior to tip-off.

Now that she has been added to the list of starters who are injured, it leaves Taurasi and Kelly Miller as the only two starters not currently nursing injuries.

With all the things going against the Mercury, the goal still remains the same as it was when the Mercury came to training camp in April – make the playoffs.

Sure, Cappie is nursing an injury, but she has continued to be productive both on the offensive end and annoying opposing guards. Taurasi does her thing every night, leading the league in scoring and coming through in crunch time. Kristen Rasmussen battles with the best of the West’s post players, and shows little sign of fatigue near the end of her seventh year in the league. Most notably, Miller controls the game, as well as Westhead’s fast as quicksilver style, better than even he originally imagined. On top of this, she is second on the team in rebounding, while also picking the oppositions’ pockets and finding open teammates for the easy bucket.

Luckily the Mercury still hold the keys to their destiny.

“For us having five years out of the playoffs is unacceptable in a way, because it is the goal of the team,” Taylor said. “I think it is really important this year to take our opportunities because you never know what is going to happen in the years to come. I think we have a really strong team now and we want to make the playoffs while we have the chance.”

Recently during a conversation with ESPN analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, Westhead said that the thing that he has been most impressed with was his players’ ability to bounce back from tough losses. Coming from an NBA champion and his success as an NCAA coach, that compliment carries a lot of value. It is an impressive feat and says a lot about the personality of this Mercury team. They make sure to play in the moment and never give up.

In other words, expect the optimistic Merc to make the best of the hand they have been dealt.