{"id":87751,"date":"2025-07-24T04:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87751\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T04:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:42:09","slug":"mercury-fall-to-dream-brittney-griner-in-her-phoenix-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87751\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury fall to Dream, Brittney Griner in her Phoenix return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Allisha Gray scored 28 points, Brittney Griner had 17 points and eight rebounds against her former team and the Atlanta Dream beat the Phoenix Mercury 90-79 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Griner made her <a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/wnba\/phoenix-mercury\/brittney-griner-dream\/3571892\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">return to Phoenix<\/a> where she played 11 seasons with the Mercury, helping lead them to the 2014 WNBA title and an appearance in the 2021 finals. The Mercury honored Griner with a tribute video before the game, with longtime teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PhoenixMercury\/status\/1948216326310518938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Diana Taurasi<\/a> sitting courtside.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Phoenix Mercury honored Brittney Griner with a tribute video during her first game back in Phoenix. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WNBA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">#WNBA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WSJtNn1MUl\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/WSJtNn1MUl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Desert Wave Media (@DesertWaveCo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DesertWaveCo\/status\/1948200359497011402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">July 24, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Gray gave Atlanta an 84-71 lead with 3:03 left before Sami Whitcomb made 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to get Phoenix within seven points. Griner answered with a basket in the lane to extend Atlanta\u2019s lead to 86-77.<\/p>\n<p>Jordin Canada added 14 points and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored 11 for Atlanta (14-10), which won for the second time in five games. Rhyne Howard, Atlanta\u2019s second-leading scorer at 16.5 points per game, did not play. Gray made 10 of 16 shots for her 10th 20-point game this.<\/p>\n<p>Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper returned to the starting lineup for Phoenix (15-8) after being out since July 3 due to injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Sabally finished with 13 points, Copper added 10 and DeWanna Bonner scored 18. Alyssa Thomas had seven points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.<\/p>\n<p>Gray scored 13 points in the first half to help Atlanta take a 39-34 lead. Phoenix shot just 29.7% from the field, including 3 of 15 from 3-point range, but stayed close by making all nine of its free-throw attempts.<\/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 Allisha Gray scored 28 points, Brittney Griner had 17 points and eight rebounds against her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87752,"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-87751","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\/114906381889361108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87751","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=87751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}