The Phoenix Mercury lost more than just the game to the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night.
Two of the team’s players, Diana Taurasi and Skylar Diggins-Smith, lost their composure with each other on the bench.
Videos captured a heated exchange between the two stars during a timeout late in the first half, with Taurasi and Diggins-Smith having to be separated.
Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard addressed the incident after the game.
“People play sports with a lot of passion and so we’ve seen it,” she said. “We’re not the first team to have any kind of arguments or disagreements on the bench. We’ve seen it throughout the NBA and other leagues this season. The players, they play hard, they play with passion. This is their lives, this is the game that they love, and there’s a lot going on. Our team has even more going on with the BG situation too. That isn’t something that goes away for us. I would call it passion.”
Recap: Kelsey Plum scores 20, Jackie Young adds 19 as Las Vegas Aces beat Phoenix Mercury 86-74
Diggins-Smith and Taurasi combined to score 18 points on 4-for-15 shooting from the field in the 86-74 loss for Phoenix.
Phoenix is 2-2 on the season with both losses coming against the Aces, who are 4-1.
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Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury: Diana Taurasi, Skylar Diggins-Smith separated on bench