By Joseph Phillips, Sports Writer
Chicago Crusader
In the first round of the 2019 WNBA Playoffs, the Chicago Sky dominated the Phoenix Mercury 105-76 on their home floor on Wednesday night at Wintrust Arena.
The Sky was led by their diamond in the rough, 6′ 1 shooting guard Diamond Deshields, who led all scorers with 25 points.
“It’s do or die,” said Deshields after conducting an interview with reporter Holly Rowe of ESPN during halftime of the team’s nationally televised game. “We don’t have time to make too many mistakes. I just want to go out and make an impact for my teammates.”
And Deshields did just that, as she’d light up the Mercury defenders for 10 first half points and 15 second half points, while earning herself her first ever career playoff victory.
In addition to Deshields earning her first ever playoff victory, another first came for someone within the Sky’s organization, as the league’s office rewarded Sky’s first year head coach James Wade with the 2019 WNBA Coach of The Year prior to the game.
“What I’m going, it doesn’t belong to me,” Wade said during the press conference prior to the game. “What I mean by that is everything can be taken away from you but what can’t is what you impart on people and so forth. I just try to be an example so somebody can follow. Like the little kids on the West Side of Chicago, they can see somebody that looks like me on the stage today, I think it’s special.”
After a 10th-place finish last season, Wade led the Sky to a 21-14 record this season, and is currently headed to the second round of the 2019 WNBA playoffs on Sunday.
With Wade and Deshields earning their first ever playoff victory together, the fifth seeded Sky will look forward to playing the fourth seeded Las Vegas Aces on Sunday September 15. at 4 p.m. central time on ESPN2.
Video attributed to the WNBA https://www.wnba.com/video/game-recap-sky-105-mercury-76/
