On Friday night in Phoenix, Alissa Thomas made history as the Phoenix Mercury defeated the reigning champions, the New York Liberty, 79-73, and advanced to the WNBA Playoffs semifinals.<\/p>\n
The six-time All-Star posted her first postseason triple-double, with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, showing dominance in every facet of the game.<\/p>\n
It was Thomas\u2019s fifth playoff triple-double of her career and the seventh in league history. She now has nine triple-doubles this season \u2013 more than any other player has in their entire WNBA career.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs this AT\u2019s first triple-double of the season?\u201d joked Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts after the game. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what she does. She influences the game in many ways. All she cares about is winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nate Tibbetts\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWhen a team has a star like that, with such pride in winning and willingness to do whatever it takes, you get a truly great team,\u201d the coach said after the game.<\/p>\n
Two days after a brilliant performance in the second game, Satou Sabally added 23 points, 12 rebounds and three assists. Kayla Cooper contributed 12 points and 9 rebounds, and Saimi Vitkam scored 13 points \u2013 giving Phoenix their first playoff-series win since 2021.<\/p>\n
DeWanna Bonner\u2019s eighth rebound vaulted her past Candace Parker\u2019s all-time playoff record \u2013 614 rebounds.<\/p>\n
In New York, Brianna Stewart scored 30 points despite a left knee MCL strain in the first game. This moved her into the list of players with the most 30+ point playoff games \u2013 eight such games.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu scored 22 points, but the Liberty\u2019s other players did not exceed eight points.<\/p>\n
The game turned into a storm of lead changes: the lead changed 13 times in the first three quarters, but the Mercury seized a 60-59 lead entering the fourth quarter and, despite Stewart\u2019s 14 points in the final minutes, held on to the lead.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAT is incredible. The way she really raised her game to a nightmare level all over the court,\u201d said a disappointed Stewart of Thomas\u2019s performance. \u201cShe has a triple-double every night, so there is a great deal of respect between the two sides.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Brianna Stewart\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Phoenix, the fourth seed, will face the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the semifinals after they defeated the Golden State Valkyries in two games. The five-game series will begin at Target Center on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday night in Phoenix, Alissa Thomas made history as the Phoenix Mercury defeated the reigning champions, the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":245794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4552,130664,1339,1520,50,1502,130665,62,101645,67,132,68,232,105313,123094,129944],"class_list":{"0":"post-245793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-alyssa-thomas","9":"tag-alyssa-thomas-phoenix-mercury-wnba-playoffs-triple-double-new-york-liberty-wnba-semifinals-basketball-wnba-records-playoff-highlights","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-new-york-liberty","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-phoenix-mercury","14":"tag-playoff-highlights","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-triple-double","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-wnba","21":"tag-wnba-playoffs","22":"tag-wnba-records","23":"tag-wnba-semifinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115246753743977471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245793","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=245793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}