Off the back of a 96-69 blowout loss to the Connecticut Sun on Sunday, the Phoenix Mercury are aiming to finish the first chunk of the season on a positive before the WNBA All-Star and Olympic break commences in a few days.

Due to inconsistencies on offense and defense, the Sun’s relentless pressure on defense causing mistakes and other issues that persisted from the first second of the game onward, Phoenix were unable to find their footing in the game. Connecticut’s aggressive playstyle caused the Mercury to shoot 7-for-25 (28.4%) from three, turn the ball over 17 turnovers that led to 21 points and the Sun outrebounded them 44-33.

Mercury struggled to find consistency vs. Sun, looking to go into Olympic break on high note against Mystics

When reflecting on the rebounding in particular, Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts identified it as a problem the team has been running into often this season and is an area that needs to be improved on.

“I think it’s the collective group, we have to be better on the glass,” Tibbetts said. “You are not going to win many games when you are giving up 16 second-chance points in the first half, that’s not realistic, it’s deflating. Our focus and physicality on the glass has to be way better.”

Diana Taurasi, Natasha Cloud and Brittney Griner all returned from injury and it will take them time to get back into the flow of playing, but players being in and out of the lineup has made it difficult for the rest of the team to generate any form of consistency. Just when one player looks like she is coming back, another is hurt.

There have only been a handful of games in which no players weren’t on the Mercury’s injury report going in. Griner missed the first 10 games of the season with a toe fracture on her left foot, Rebecca Allen and Sug Sutton have suffered multiple injuries this year and other players have been missing with miscellaneous issues.

While it is easy to point the blame at the health of the team, Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham believes the game against the Sun has provided them with lessons they can learn and hopes they can improve as the break slowly arrives.

“I think this is a game where you can learn a lot from,” Cunningham said. “I think we got away from our culture quite a bit, we’ve had a lot of people in and out. Even from the start of the season, people have just been injured. There’s been a lot that has been thrown our way, hopefully we are getting this out of the way and come back from [WNBA] All-Star and Olympic break good to go. Good news is that we are not peaking too quickly. For us, it’s about our culture and getting back to what Phoenix does this year.”

Phoenix has just one game remaining before the break, a matchup against the Washington Mystics. The last time these two teams clashed, the Mercury narrowly won 83-80 on May 23.

With a 4-8 record on the road this season and a long layoff until mid-August looming, Allen wants her team to play as a collective and be able to finish with a win.

“It’s important to get this win against D.C., we want to finish on a high especially going into a break,” Allen said. “We want to stay together and play to how we want to play, represent Phoenix Mercury basketball.”

In an extremely early matchup on Tuesday, the Mercury will go up against the Mystics at 8:30 a.m. PT.