There’s no other way to put it; the Mercury needed a win Wednesday.

After dropping two consecutive games on the road to end the month of August, a victory would seemingly be the only remedy.

Fortunately for Phoenix, they played a dominant all-around game en route to a 73-53 win over the Washington Mystics.

With three Mercury games remaining in the 2015 regular season, Phoenix (18-13) sits 2.0 games ahead of Tulsa in second place in the Western Conference. Tulsa has five games remaining, including a match-up on the final day of the regular season against the Mercury.

Here are the takeaways from #MercVsMystics:

By The Numbers  

After scoring 73 points against the Mystics, a key to victory this season seems to be the number 70; when Phoenix scores 70 or more points they are 18-4 this season and 0-9 when they do not reach the 70-point mark.

The Mercury shot 55.4-percent (31-of-56) Wednesday against the Mystics and improved to 9-0 this season when shooting above 50-percent for the game. Perhaps more significant, the Mercury recorded an impressive 21 assists on 31 field goals.

Phoenix held Washington to just 31.1-percent shooting and outscored the Mystics 21-7 in the third quarter.

“We definitely let our defense shine tonight and our offense as well,” Brittney Griner said. “If you’re playing good defense, then your offense will come too. We had players come off the bench and they got some minutes and did amazing.”

No. 10    

With their victory on Wednesday, Phoenix clinched the 10th winning season in the 19-year history of the franchise, guaranteeing an above-.500 record for 2015.

The 2015 season will be the third-straight winning season and the fifth in the last seven seasons.

“We had a rocky August but like I keep saying, it’s September and we learned from the past and we’re just focused on being the best team we can now,” Sandy Brondello said. “We came with the appropriate energy; we played smart and executed the scout. So it was a good win, we needed that. We’ve been struggling a little bit but now it’s just about being consistent.”

Dupree Was on Fire

Mercury forward Candice Dupree missed just one shot from the field Wednesday (8-of-9, .889), and scored a game-high 18 points to go along with six rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Over her last four games, Dupree is shooting 57.6-percent (19-of-33) from the field.

“We shouldn’t have lost that game in Washington,” Dupree said. “I think we gave it away—too many turnovers, just not playing smart on the defensive end. So we jumped on them early [today], opened the lead a little bit going into the half and then in the third quarter I think we went on a 21-7 run, so we probably had our best third quarter all season.”