PHOENIX -- Danielle Adams scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half and the Silver Stars had 44 points in the paint to beat the Phoenix Mercury 88-80 on Wednesday.
Griner was out with a sprained left knee, missing only her second game since injuring it in early June.
"That is entirely too much," Phoenix coach Corey Gaines said. "We couldn't get any stops. It wasn't just one person; it was the whole team. We did not necessarily shoot the ball bad."
DeLisha Milton-Jones added 16 and Shenise Johnson, Jane Appel and Danielle Robinson each had 13 for the Silver Stars (4-8), who snapped a three-game losing streak and won for the second time in nine games overall.
San Antonio became the first WNBA team other than Minnesota to beat the Mercury since June 2 at Seattle.
Candice Dupree scored 22 points and Diane Taurasi had 20 before fouling out with 2:39 to go for the Mercury (8-6), who have lost two straight after winning five in a row.
Penny Taylor's two free throws with 8:19 left gave Phoenix its final lead, 70-69, with 8:19 left. But Adams scored five straight points and Taurasi committed three fouls to foul out of the game and also had a turnover in a 96-second span as the Silver Stars opened an 83-75 lead.
Taylor finished with a season-high 14 points.
"They played better than us for forty minutes," Taurasi said. "Defensively they did better things than us, offensively they executed. We didn't do much on our end to combat that."
