{"id":188851,"date":"2025-08-31T06:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T06:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188851\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T06:04:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T06:04:23","slug":"mercury-pick-up-key-win-over-liberty-in-race-for-top-2-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188851\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury pick up key win over Liberty in race for top-2 seed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Kahleah Copper hit five 3-pointers and finished with 22 points, Alyssa Thomas had 14 points and nine assists and the Phoenix Mercury beat the defending WNBA champion New York Liberty 80-63 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix (25-14) has won four in a row and six of seven to move into a tie with Atlanta for third in the WNBA standings, one-half game behind second-place Las Vegas and 1.5 games ahead of the Liberty.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kahleah Copper had the hot hand tonight in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PhoenixMercury?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">@PhoenixMercury<\/a>&#8216;s victory over the Liberty! The Mercury improve to 25-14 to record their most wins in a season since 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd25 22 PTS<br \/>\ud83d\udd25 5 3PM<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WelcometotheW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">#WelcometotheW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Postseason Push | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DraftKings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">@DraftKings<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w5rxo4xUP5\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/w5rxo4xUP5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WNBA (@WNBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WNBA\/status\/1962009999581827299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">August 31, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Satou Sabally also scored 14 points for the Mercury. Natasha Mack had 10 rebounds \u2014 including a career-high seven offensive boards \u2014 to go with eight points and four blocks. DeWanna Bonner added nine points and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>There were nine lead changes and nine ties before Kathryn Westbeld and Copper hit 3-pointers 29 seconds apart to take the lead for good at 51-48 and spark a 15-1 run. Bonner stole a pass and went the other way for a layup, then hit 3 to cap the spurt and make it an 11-point lead almost a minute into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercury made 10 of 14 from the field in the fourth and scored 17 of the final 20 points. New York missed five consecutive field-goal attempts and committed three turnovers before Isabelle Harrison made a layup to cap the scoring with 16.8 seconds left.<\/p>\n<p>Emma Meesseman led New York (24-16) with 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting. Breanna Stewart scored 14 points and Natasha Cloud added 13.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberty play Tuesday at Golden State. The Mercury host Indiana on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AZSports\" data-show-count=\"false\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Follow @AZSports<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/arizona-sports-newsletter-signup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AZSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AZSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Kahleah Copper hit five 3-pointers and finished with 22 points, Alyssa Thomas had 14 points&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1846,1587,316,1589,1845,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-188851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-sports-now-on-98-7-fm","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-home","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-phoenix-arizona-sports-news-phoenix-breaking-sports-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115121872169338622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}