Shock Edged by Mercury

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A last second put-back by Scholanda Dorrell was waived off after an official review and the Shock were narrowly defeated, 89-87, by the Phoenix Mercury on May 22 at the BOK Center.

Down two with 9.9 seconds to go, Ivory Latta missed a three-pointer from the corner and Glory Johnson missed the put-back before Dorrell made a short jumper as time expired that was eventually waived off by the officials.

“It’s just unbelievable to me that it happened like that," Temeka Johnson said. "It was a great offensive board by Sho. She did what she needed to do to get in there and try to put it back. Glory came up with the rebound and it’s something we needed throughout this whole game. It’s a tough one to swallow but we’ve got to regroup.” Johnson finished with 16 points and seven assists and surprassed the 900-assist mark early in the first quarter. Ivory Latta also had 16 points in the game for the Shock who fell to 0-2 after two heartbreaking losses in the final minutes.

"This is just the beginning. We did a lot of good things," Dorrell said. "We’ll come in and watch film tomorrow. We’ll look at the things we did well. We’ll look at the things we didn’t do so well. We’ll clean it up. It’s really early and we still have time.”

Trailing by six at halftime, 48-42, the Mercury went on a 17-4 run in the final 5:16 of the third quarter to take a 70-63 lead into the fourth quarter.

Tulsa trailed by 11 points with 4:46 left in the game before going on a 14-2 run that catapulted the Shock to 86-85 lead with 1:26 left in the game. Phoenix regained the lead, 89-87, on pairs of free throws from Charde Houston and Samantha Prahalis before the Shock's failed attempt on the final possession.

“If we could get one under our belt I’d feel pretty good. I think with a young team like this, trying to rebuild, if you could get a win, then they know how that feels," Head Coach Gary Kloppenburg said. "That’s where we’re at now. We’re right there, we’ve been right there two games with a chance to win and we couldn’t close it out. A couple of mistakes, as I told them in there, we’re a team and we’ve only been together about three weeks. It’s a new team. These teams we’re playing have a core group that have been together for years.”

For the second straight game, the Shock forced 20-plus turnovers, scoring 29 points off of their 23 turnovers against the Mercury.

“We use everything as motivation. We feel like we played two really good games these last two games that we very well could have won," Dorrell said. "Now it’s going to take us refocusing and not worrying about this loss or the last one and gearing up for our next one."

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