Sports

Wings Beat Mercury For 2nd Time In 4 Days

June 22, 2016 / 7:04 AM CDT / CBS Texas

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ARLINGTON (AP) - Glory Johnson and Brittney Griner both were back on the court about an hour after the game ended, among only a couple of Dallas Wings and Phoenix Mercury players still milling around talking to family, friends and fans. They were on opposite ends, and didn't acknowledge each other.

For the second time in four nights, the Wings had beaten Phoenix, this time 100-90 at home Tuesday night. Those are the only games Griner and Johnson have played each other since their acrimonious split last year.

"I haven't even thought about it honestly," said Griner, who had 17 points for the Mercury. "This game was better, but we both played hard, it was all good."

While Griner and Johnson were on the floor together well more than half the game, there were no obvious interactions between the two aside from basketball plays. During postgame handshakes, they shared high-fives without looking at each other in the line of players.

"She plays aggressive, I play aggressive, when we play aggressive, they always want to turn it to something different, but everything was good honestly," Griner said. "There were no outside feelings on myself, and I didn't feel any on hers either, so it was a good game."

Johnson had 16 points and 10 rebounds in only her sixth game this season since serving a seven-game WNBA suspension for domestic violence in their Phoenix-area home last year. Griner had served hers last season, when Johnson missed while pregnant with twins.

The two married three weeks after they were arrested for a fight in April 2015. But Griner filed for an annulment last June, a day after Johnson announced she was pregnant via in-vitro fertilization.

Before Tuesday's game, Johnson said there had been no communication between the two and that she was focused on the babies and playing basketball.

"I think the awkwardness between me and her is kind of dead, it's just people are creating it to be something that it's not," Johnson said.

Skylar Diggins scored 12 of her 20 points in the decisive third quarter for the Wings, including go-ahead tiebreaking 3-pointer just more than 2 minutes after halftime. She added a jumper and a running layup soon after that for a 57-50 lead, and Johnson scored eight of her points in that same quarter.

Odyssey Sims added 17 points and nine assists for the Wings, who have won three in a row since a six-game losing streak. Jordan Hooper had 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting, including three 3-pointers.

DeWanna Bonner had 26 points for the Mercury, and Diana Taurasi scored 19 points on the same day she was named one of the 20 greatest and most influential players in the history of the WNBA, which is in its 20th season.

After Dallas won in triple overtime in Phoenix on Saturday night, the rematch in North Texas also had Griner and Sims playing only about 100 miles from the Baylor campus where they were teammates for three seasons (2010-13). The Lady Bears were 108-5 those three seasons, including a 40-0 national championship in 2012.

Griner got a nice reception when the starting lineups were announced. There were some Baylor fans in the building, and there was also the Instagram post this week by Johnson after she got booed and heard vulgar taunts throughout the game in Phoenix asking Wings fans to not mimic such behavior.

Johnson showed some emotion with just under 2 minutes left in the third quarter when she made a basket near Griner that put the sixth-ranked Wings up 71-62.

Griner was called for a foul on Johnson with 3:26 left in the game. That was a routine play, and not like Saturday when they got tangled up leading to a foul against Griner and a technical against Johnson for pulling her down. Johnson made both free throws Tuesday to make it 90-79.

"Even when we were together, it was a situation where we got tangled up then too," Johnson said earlier in the day. "There was no technical, but we got tangled up back then too and both of us landed on the floor. It's just a situation where we're not really trying to make it as awkward as everybody else."

Johnson also said it wasn't hard for her to separate what happens on and off the court, and that she is playing the same way she always has in the WNBA, and did in college and back in middle school.

Griner just wants the focus to be on basketball.

"I'm a civil person. Just move on," Griner said. "You don't hold grudges. You learn from mistakes, you learn from stuff that you did. ... Don't be bitter."

WNBA