{"id":93416,"date":"2025-07-26T06:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93416\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T06:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:37:23","slug":"phoenix-mercury-let-early-lead-slip-in-loss-to-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93416\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Mercury let early lead slip in loss to Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Sabrina Ionescu scored 29 points while Jonquel Jones added 20 points and 11 rebounds to help the New York Liberty beat the Phoenix Mercury 89-76 on Friday night for their fifth consecutive win.<\/p>\n<p>Alyssa Thomas produced 20 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists for Phoenix, as she fell just short of her 17th career triple-double and 13th in the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas had 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists in the opening 20 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix scored the first eight points and built its lead to a dozen before New York rallied to tie it 46-all at the half. Ionescu hit two free throws with 0.9 seconds left in the second quarter. Jones had 11 points and eight rebounds in the half.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nyliberty?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">@nyliberty<\/a>&#8216;s dynamic duo combined for 49 PTS in the win over the Mercury \ud83c\udf1f<\/p>\n<p>Sabrina Ionescu: 29 PTS, 5, REB, 8 AST, 4 3PM<br \/>Jonquel Jones: 20 PTS, 11 REB<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WelcometotheW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">#WelcometotheW<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mnvPMz2gMn\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/mnvPMz2gMn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WNBA (@WNBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WNBA\/status\/1948924595714589066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">July 26, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>New York trailed 54-49 midway through the third quarter before closing the period on an 18-5 run capped by Jones\u2019 fadeaway shot that she got off just before the end of the quarter. That gave the Liberty a 67-59 lead.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberty poured it on in the fourth behind Ionescu, who scored the first five points during a 10-2 run that gave the team a 82-64 advantage \u2014 its biggest of the game. The Mercury couldn\u2019t get within single digits the rest of the way.<\/p>\n<p>Leonie Fiebich added 13 points for the Liberty (17-6), who put more space between them and the third-place Mercury (15-9), who won the teams\u2019 first two meetings this season.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercury defeated the Liberty 106-91 in their last matchup on June 28.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberty have gone 12-2 in home games.<\/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":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Sabrina Ionescu scored 29 points while Jonquel Jones added 20 points and 11 rebounds&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93417,"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-93416","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\/114918158884902840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93416","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=93416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}