The most elusive aspect of Kahleah Copper’s game is pure instinct.
When the Chicago Sky guard launches herself toward the basket, she almost seems to float for a moment. Those airborne half-seconds are intensely precise — arms wheeling to redirect her shot, body glancing off contact from bigger players, hands adjusting too quickly for thought.
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But Copper can’t articulate what her brain processes to bend the ball into the basket.
“I’m just going,” Copper said. “It’s just so natural. I don’t really feel what you guys see.”
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It’s not that Copper doesn’t work at this — in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
She is tireless behind closed doors, the type of teammate who can’t stand to lose a sprint in practice or an alleged friendly wager on the team bus. She enlists teammates and assistant coaches for extra drills and spends the offseasons playing against Europe’s best players in Spain.
But all of this effort is made so that when she’s in the air, Copper’s brain can shut down to let her body take over.
“For me, it’s just …” Copper trailed off as she attempted to explain the mechanics of her layups after Game 2 of the first-round playoff series against the New York Liberty. She was trying but just couldn’t put it into words. Instead, Copper gestured her arms in the general arc of a layup, swinging both hands around in a half-speed pantomime of her signature up-and-under finish.
“It’s just like that,” she said. “Not like that, but like that. You know?”
The answer, of course, is no. Most of the time, Copper’s teammates don’t understand what’s going through her mind when she elevates toward the basket.
Although Copper still can catch her team by surprise, her highlights have become a standard over the last six years. Copper’s exceptional athleticism will be a necessity for the Sky in their quest for a second straight WNBA championship.
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After defeating the Liberty in three games, the Sky next face the Connecticut Sun in the semifinals. Game 1 of the best-of-five series is at 7 p.m. Sunday at Wintrust Arena.
When the Sky played the Sun on July 31, Copper seemed to flip a switch on gravity at Mohegan Sun Arena on a third-quarter play. It would’ve been a standard roll to the basket, except when Copper went up for a layup she forgot to come down for a moment, her hand hovering over the rim as she was suspended midair, shoulders and waist fully above the eyeline of three defenders.
As Copper cooly jogged back on defense, coach James Wade turned to assistant coaches on his bench, eyes wide and incredulous: “Did you see that (explitive)?”
“I was like, ‘Where in the floor is the trampoline?’ ” Wade laughed. “There’s no way.”
It’s not even a question among Copper’s teammates whether she could dunk if she wanted. Center Emma Meesseman gave the 6-foot-1 wing better odds to throw down a dunk than most of the post players on the Sky roster, quickly adding a plea for Copper not to attempt any acrobatics until after the playoffs.
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“It’s become normal now,” captain Courtney Vandersloot said, “which is unfortunate because it really is special. She has such a unique ability to finish through contact, through multiple players. She makes it look easy, and what she’s doing is not easy. When she’s doing that, we’re special.”
Copper might be the best athlete in the league, but her game doesn’t rest on raw physicality alone.
Against the Liberty, Copper showcased her ability to adjust and crack open an opposing team’s strategy — especially on defense. Copper racked up five steals and only three fouls in the three-game series, switching onto Sabrina Ionescu in Games 2 and 3 to shut down the Liberty’s top scorer.
There’s a reason Copper leads the league with six fast-break points per game. Once she pounces on a loose ball, no one can beat her in a footrace. But wreaking havoc as a perimeter defender requires crafty timing and rigorous attention to detail, which Copper brings with force when locking down on opposing guards.
Copper’s ability to read and adjust also transfers to her offense, complicating opponents’ ability to prepare for her. The Liberty schemed their defense specifically to reduce Copper’s production — hedging screens, ducking inside the 3-point line to head off her rolls to the rim, triggering traps at the edges of the paint to intercept her slashing lanes.
None of it worked. Copper coughed up the ball four times in Game 1 but corrected those errors, finishing the series without another turnover. She averaged 18.7 points against the Liberty, scoring 20 points in an emphatic Game 2 win.
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“No one can stop her regardless of who she’s playing in the whole WNBA,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said after the deciding Game 3 on Tuesday in New York.
Copper leads the Sky in scoring at 15.7 points per game, but the team’s well-balanced offense keeps any player from leaping off the stat sheet.
The Sky believe they play their best when Copper and Vandersloot are equally aggressive, forcing defenses to honor them both at the perimeter and disrupting double teams. As a result, six players averaged in double digits this season.
Copper is the sixth-highest scorer in the league, slightly trailing other guards such as Kelsey Plum and Chelsea Gray. But the playoffs are where Copper closes that gap.
She always has made a leap in the postseason, upping her regular-season averages by at least three points for four straight seasons. Last year, Copper hit a different gear in the playoffs — averaging 17.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists on her way to winning Finals MVP — and leads the league this season in postseason points (56).
As the Sky enter a semifinals rematch against the Sun — they won in four games in 2021 — they know their bid for consecutive titles runs through Copper.
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“If you’re going for a championship, you have to be a balanced team — which we are,” veteran guard Allie Quigley said. “But at some point you need someone to just take over and be that person that has the physical capabilities and the skill to do that. She’s the one on our team that can take us to that level.”
