The Phoenix Mercury were hovering around .500 at this point in 2007, before going on an end-of-the-season tear that culminated in their first WNBA title. They'd love to make a similar run this season, but their recent play hasn't left much reason to believe they can.The Mercury will look to avoid dropping their fourth straight game on Thursday when they conclude their season series with the visiting Los Angeles Sparks. Phoenix (9-12) was 12-10 last season before winning 11 of its final 12 games and eventually taking home its first league championship. The Mercury have the league's two leading scorers, Diana Taurasi (23.6 points per game) and Cappie Pondexter (23.3 ppg), but they're also far and away the WNBA's worst defensive team, allowing opponents to score an average of 90.1 points. Defense has been Phoenix's downfall during a three-game losing streak that's left it tied with Houston for last place in the West. The Mercury are giving up 97.0 points per game during the slide, including a 97-87 loss to conference-leading San Antonio on Tuesday.

Phoenix has been at its worst within its own conference. The Mercury are 7-3 against the East, but just 2-9 versus the West. One of those wins against the West came in their first trip to Los Angeles. Phoenix turned in one of its best defensive performances of the season on June 6 at Staples Center, limiting the Sparks to 10 points in the fourth quarter and rallying from 16 down in the final period to win 85-79. Los Angeles (13-8) has topped the Mercury in the teams' others two meetings, winning 99-94 in Phoenix on May 17 and 91-80 at home on July 6, when Taurasi scored a season-low eight points.

Prediction

The Phoenix Mercury is one of the best teams when playing at home and I expect them to be fully motivated in this game after 3 straight losses. I don't expect this game to be easy for Mercury because so far Sparks was a better team in all 3 matches but 2 of them were played in Los Angeles (Phoenix managed to win one game by by super-fourth quarter). I don't like the current form of Los Angeles especially how they waste their leads and losing games playing at home. They are not looking confident and have some troubles in scoring points. They played 8 of last 10 games at home and have 3-5 ATS record in last 2 weeks and I think that line doesn't include away factor for Sparks where they lost 4 of 9 games.

Also statisticaly I expected to see 91.5-87 line because at home offensive power of Phoenix doubles while Sparks usually scores less than 90 points. If Mercury will be at 80% of their level they should be 4.5-5 points favorites in my opinion. I can't say that this line is wrong or have big value but I will try this one with medium-low stakes because 1.74 on Phoenix is a good price and Sparks are not in their best mode in my opinion.

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