PHOENIX -- OK, so we know the Mercury has added the record for margin of victory in a WNBA Finals game to their warehouse of 2014 goodies.
But we're also pretty certain they're not perfect.
While clobbering the Chicago Sky, 97-68, in Tuesday's Game 2 at U.S. Airways Center, they did miss 43.9 percent of their field-goal attempts, and allowed the visiting team to shoot more than 3 percentage points higher (37.5) than it did in Game 1.
So, with perfection remaining so bitterly elusive, how have they managed to perform so much better than the rest of this league?
"I think we do a good job of hiding our weaknesses," said Phoenix forward Candice Dupree, who followed Sunday's 26-point salvo by scoring 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting.
With the Sky seemingly allowing the Mercury to continue playing to their strengths, attempting to hide any weaknesses (defensive rebounding always comes up) hardly was necessary.
And it's even more perplexing for the opposition when its weaknesses continue to be exposed.
Anyway, in a best-of-five format, Phoenix (29-5 on the regular season, 6-1 in the postseason) is just one triumph away from its third WNBA championship. The Mercury have confidence, a fussy-about-the-details coaching staff, brutal momentum (28-2 with the current starting lineup) and the incomparable Diana Taurasi, who is 7-0 in close-out games as a Mercury employee.
Having pole-axed the Eastern Conference champions on both ends of the floor over two games, how tricky can it be to maintain this laser focus?
"The goal is to not become complacent," said Dupree, the team rep for the consistency lobby.
Admittedly, there was some slippage in Game 2.
With the score tied at 31, Taurasi bagged a 3 at 3:57 of the second quarter to give Phoenix the lead for good. It certainly helped that Chicago star Elena Delle Donne picked up her third foul moments later and retired for the remainder of the half.
Delle Donne -- rallying considerably from lower-back pain that severely limited her Game 1 impact -- had 12 of her game-high 22 points by then.
Saving her and that balky back for later didn't pay dividends, especially with Taurasi (13 of her 18 points in the second quarter) seizing the opportunity to take over. And when Mercury guard Erin Phillips swiped an inbounds pass in the Sky frontcourt and converted a 3-point play at the other end of the floor with .5 remaining, Chicago was in a 51-36 hole at intermission.
"From that point on," Chicago coach Pokey Chatman said, "they dominated us in every aspect."
By the way, that complacency deal was brought to the Mercury's attention at halftime by coach Sandy Brondello.
"Sandy came in here and told us she felt we weren't giving 100 percent effort," Dupree said, referring to the message from the league's Coach of the Year. "They were outhustling us. We weren't playing our defense we normally play.
"We cleaned it up in the second half."
Yeah, Phoenix was sufficiently impressive at guarding the Sky that team owner Robert Sarver paid the squad a postgame visit and imparted some serious flattery.
"Our owner came in and told us we have the best defense he's seen in any league ... including the NBA," Dupree said.
For specifics, some series-defining work has been applied while defending 6-foot-6 Sky center Sylvia Fowles. Considered a potential match-up challenge for 6-8 Mercury star Brittney Griner, Fowles scored four points in Game 2, missing 9 of 11 shots from the field.
Fowles did have a solid, game-ending stat line in Game 1, but was only 2 of 9 in a decisive first half. Griner's reach -- the main part of a Mercury defensive extension that inspired Chatman to inform us there is a "difference between swarming and length" -- has prevented Fowles from being a factor.
WNBA FINALS
Game 1: Mercury 83, Sky 62
Game 2: Mercury 97, Sky 68
Game 3: Phoenix at Chicago, 5 p.m. Friday (ESPN2)
Game 4: Phoenix at Chicago, 2:30 p.m. Sunday (ESPN2)*
Game 5: Chicago at Phoenix, 6 p.m. Sept. 17 (ESPN2)*
* -- if necessary
Conversely, Griner -- who bounced back from two inadvertent first-half blows to the face -- scored a team-high 19 points and closed the road to the Mercury basket with four blocked shots.
After losing any whisper of momentum while Delle Donne sat at the end of the second quarter, Chicago's second half was defined by breakdowns aplenty.
"There were so many horrible sequences," Chatman said. "I could go on and on and on. We never gave ourselves a chance."
When asked if the chances of defeating Phoenix are slim when the Mercury moves the ball and themselves on offense while maintaining that defensive focus, Dupree didn't have to ponder the question for long. For the record, defense was where she went with her response.
"I think so," she said. "As long as we're communicating and everybody's in a stance, we're switching screens and being aggressive, it's hard to get by us."
Aside from having really good players -- the Phoenix starters made 30 of 51 shots from the field in Game 1 and all five reached double digits in scoring -- how does such comprehensive dominance occur?
"Well, they're pretty damn good, for one," Chatman said. "And we're not helping our cause."
Dupree, who played for Chicago before landing in Phoenix and has yet to win a WNBA championship, doesn't expect a coronation during Friday's Game 3 in the Windy City.
She pointed out how the Sky rallied from big deficits to knock off the Indiana Fever in their conference championship series.
"We definitely don't want that to happen to us," she said. "We're going back to their city, their home floor. They're going to put up a fight."
