The Dallas Wings walked away with yet another win against the Phoenix Mercury, but Jose Fernandez was not interested in pretending that everything went according to plan. Instead, the Wings’ head coach called out his team for botching coverage against one of the worst-performing teams in the league.
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His comments came in the postgame conference after Dallas beat the Mercury 87-82, when he was asked by reporter Imaal Ali about the team’s perimeter defense, especially with the playoffs on the horizon. His candid words were recorded and posted to YouTube by The Ballers Magazine.
“It was terrible,” Fernandez told reporters. “The pick-and-roll coverage, and then, you know, we were up to touch, we hedged, then we, then we wanted to blitz, and we switched. Our communication was way off. Phoenix did a good job of exploiting that, but they inverted ball screens with AT. You try and go under, and then you fight through, and you set it with a shooter. Now the shooter pops. We’re just off on that, on those things.”
The numbers show just why Fernandez was unhappy with his squad. Despite Phoenix logging the fifth-worst defensive rating in the league, they held the Wings, the sixth-best offense in the league, to just 87 points, an effort spearheaded by Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas. The Mercury star scored 19 points on 8-for-11 shooting, along with 10 rebounds and 11 assists, adding a steal and two blocks.
On the other side of the ball, Paige Bueckers led the scoring effort for the Wings with 26 points on 10-for-19 shooting, knocking down five three-pointers while also adding four rebounds, five assists, three steals, and a block. For the Wings, her scoring impact has been a major factor, which made their performance without her something that Fernandez highlighted in his postgame interview.
“I thought we came out and we responded when they made runs and made baskets, especially with Paige on the bench,” he said. “But I think we got her back in at the six minute mark and she was well rested. And we were able to close out the game.”
That resilience has been a major part of Dallas’ season, which, after their win against the Mercury, became a record-setting one. The win, which was their 26th of the season, is a new franchise record, breaking the mark set by the Detroit Shock, the franchise’s previous iteration, which won the championship in 2003. The win against the Mercury marks the sixth consecutive victory for Dallas.
What makes this all the more impressive is the team’s recent history. Over their last two seasons, the team won a combined 19 games, giving them the ability to draft #1 overall in 2025 and 2026, and eventually turning into one of the league’s biggest turnarounds this season.
Fernandez, who is one of the team’s new acquisitions this offseason, has not been afraid to call out what he sees as poor effort from the team. During their previous matchup against the Los Angeles Sparks, Fernandez called out the team’s poor play in the first half, joking that he would have stopped watching if he were a fan.
“The first half, it was tough,” he said. “You can tell we hadn’t played in two weeks, and the officials hadn’t officiated for a while either. So it was a pretty good balance. So I think everybody. Everybody was a little rusty from not doing stuff. But yeah, I would have turned the TV off at halftime. I would have changed the channel.”
For all his criticism, Dallas seems receptive to their coach’s feedback. After tying the previous game 44-44 at the half, the Wings outscored LA 53-33 in the second half to seal a win.
Only time will tell if the Wings respond to Fernandez’s latest callout by playing at a higher level, but until then, the team needs to make sure that their perimeter defense doesn’t force close calls once the playoffs start.