The Mercury look to slow down Lauren Jackson and the Seattle Storm tonight in Phoenix

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[Note by Phoenix Stan, 07/01/09 10:00 PM MST ]

Looks the Mercury pulled off a great 90-76 win with a late surge. Wow, I am sorry I missed this one.

Btw - I have it on good authority that Amare, Robin Lopez, Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin were at the game. I will have exclusive photos to post sometime tomorrow.

The Storm come back to Phoenix tonight for a rematch of the 93-84 defeat Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird handed to the home team.

Since that time, the Mercury have gone on the road and lost two of three games with a win over the Eastern Conference leading Washington Mystics being sandwiched between a close lose to the San Antonio Silver Stars and a blow out at the hands of the Minnesota Lynx.

With the toughest stretch of the schedule over, the Mercury (6-4) find themselves in 3rd place in the West behind #1 Minnesota (7-3) and #2 Seattle (6-3).

That all makes tonight's game against the Storm as close to a must win as you can have 30% through the season. The Mercury should be well rested after their though stretch and will be highly motivated after the blowout Saturday and the defeat to their conference rivals a few weeks ago.

Once again, the Mercury will be at a disadvantage in the paint but this time will have more floor time for Nicole Ohlde who should be able to give around 15 minutes tonight. Beyond that, Taurasi and team need to keep their cool and play hard for 48 minutes. It sounds simple, but these are two teams that play very different styles and the team with the most energy usually will be able to impose it's will.

I will be on an airplane headed home to Phoenix tonight and will miss the game but I will put up some kind of recap tonight.

Here's the Yahoo! Sports preview of tonight's game.