Newly crowned WNBA scoring champion Liz Cambage won't have it easy when she leads the Dallas Wings against the Phoenix Mercury in their sudden-death play-off.
The 203cm Australian, who averaged an WNBA best 23 points a game during the regular season, including a league record 53 in one outing, will go head-to-head with the Mercury's 206cm five-time All-Star centre Brittney Griner in Arizona on Tuesday (10.30am on Wednesday AEST).
Griner will have a game plan drawn up by Mercury coach Sandy Brondello, who also coaches the Australian Olympic team and intimately knows Cambage's strengths and weaknesses.
"Liz is hands down a great post player," Griner, last year's WNBA scoring leader and a member of Team USA's 2016 Olympic gold medal-winning squad, told the Arizona Republic newspaper on Monday.
"What she's done this season, we definitely don't want to overlook.
"We know she can put up numbers."
The Mercury also features Cambage's Opals teammates, forward Stephanie Talbot and back-up guard Leilani Mitchell, and is led by one of the WNBA's greats, American guard Diana Taurasi.
Cambage will be supported by Australian back-up centre Cayla George and American All-Star guard Skylar Diggins-Smith.
"We've got to make sure we're keeping them out of the paint and contesting without fouling," said Brondello, a four-time Australian Olympian as a player.
"Make sure we're doing a good job on Cambage and Diggins, who get a lot of shots."
The Mercury, seeded fifth for the play-offs, won two of the three regular-season meetings with the Wings this year.
The Wings, who clawed their way into the play-offs with the eighth and final seed, beat the Mercury 101-72 in their last encounter on July 10.
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