The Phoenix Mercury are in the WNBA Finals this year. This sports writer likes their chances

The WNBA Finals get underway on Friday night in Las Vegas as the Aces take on the Phoenix Mercury.

This is the Mercury’s first trip to the finals since 2021. The Aces won the championship in both 2022 and 2023.

Sabreena Merchant, sports writer for the Athletic, joined The Show to talk about the upcoming series.

News

Phoenix Mercury head to Game 1 of WNBA Finals in Las Vegas

Phil Latzman

It’s the first best of seven series in WNBA history. Mercury head coach Nate Tibbets says that’s pretty special.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Sabreena, if someone had told you at the beginning of the WNBA season that the Phoenix Mercury would be in the Finals, what would your response have been?

SABREENA MERCHANT: They must have made some kind of midseason trade to get to this point.

BRODIE: Yeah, this is, I mean — I don't know what the odds were at the beginning of the season, but I'm guessing the Mercury had pretty long odds to get here.

MERCHANT: Yeah, I think there were four teams that most teams expected to be in this position. Among them the Las Vegas Aces, but also New York, Minnesota and Indiana. And Phoenix has taken out two of those teams to get to this point. So they have definitely earned their rights to be in the WNBA Finals.

BRODIE: So how did they do it? Because this is a team that pretty much overhauled its entire roster in the off season.

MERCHANT: Absolutely. This is a team that returns two players — incidentally, starters from last year's group — but only two players out of the 12 from last year's group. And they had an incredible off season, bringing in Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally, who were arguably the two best players on the free-agent market. And they both decided to come to Phoenix and the Mercury were able to acquire both of them. They got some good veterans, including Sami Whitcomb and DeWanna Bonner, who ended up coming midseason who have provided some depth.

But I think the real masterclass that nobody really expected from Phoenix was the way they filled out their bench. And it was a bunch of players that a lot of people around the league hadn't heard of and weren't familiar with their games because they were new to the WNBA, even though they had played several of them, you know, like multiple years in Europe in overseas leagues.

And they really held down the fort while Alyssa Thomas was injured a little at the start of the season, and Kahleah Copper missed the first part of the season. Like all these players who didn't have a lot of expectations coming into the season, which I think is indicative of Phoenix as a whole, and yet immediately sort of acclimated to the level of WNBA play.

The Athletic

And that is what enabled Phoenix to compile such a good regular season record and be in this position to be competing for a WNBA title.

BRODIE: All right, so you mentioned the Las Vegas Aces. They've obviously won some WNBA championships in recent years. So how do these two teams up in terms of, you know, they now have a best of seven series here?

MERCHANT: Yeah, historic best of seven series — first time in WNBA history. But you think about Phoenix Mercury, they are coming together on the fly, right? This is a team that's been together for all of one year, essentially. And the Las Vegas Aces, although they are a little different this year in their roster, the core of this team has been together for quite some time.

And they won two titles together in 2022 and 2023, with the same head coach, Becky Hammon. And that gives them, I think, the experience advantage in this series. That's the No. 1 thing you look at. But you know, these are two teams that are relatively familiar with each other just from a player perspective.

Alyssa Thomas has played against the Aces in the finals as recently as 2022. Satou Sabally’s last foray into the playoffs was in 2023. She lost to the Aces. Kahleah Copper's last time in the playoffs, you know, in 2023, she also lost to the Aces. So there's some, you know, experiences that I'm sure Phoenix would like to erase from their memories and, you know, set those off with a win.

But if you think just about the regular season, Vegas beat this team three times during the regular season. The only win that Phoenix collected was a game that A’ja Wilson didn't play. And I'm sure that they will acknowledge that. Not really one you can go and look back on if A’ja Wilson didn't play. So some regular season mojo that they're going to have to overcome. But that's something that they did against Minnesota.

And I think what the Mercury will say is that they're just playing better at this time of the year. You know, they've become a better rebounding team, they become a better defensive team, a better fourth-quarter execution team as we saw in Minnesota when they absolutely crushed the Lynx in three consecutive fourth quarters by the tune of about 38 points to win those games.

So I think based on the way the Mercury are playing right now and the way they've come together —and that's to be expected considering, again, how new this team is, right. They're just learning each other in real time. It's hard to put too much stock in those games that happened in in June and August.

BRODIE: OK, so I've got to ask, in The Athletic, you pick the Mercury in six. Are you standing by that at this point?

MERCHANT: Yeah, I am standing by it. You know, I, I hate to go against the, the best player in the series, which, all due respect to Phoenix Mercury fans, I still believe A’ja Wilson. ... And the Aces do have home court advantage. But, you know, having watched the Aces through the course of the playoffs, like they're kind of here by the skin of their teeth. Game 3 in the first round against Seattle, they could have easily lost that game to the Seattle Storm. One made jumper by Skylar Diggins and the Aces are heading home after that series.

And against Indiana, a team that just barely found enough bodies to put on the court, like it took overtime of Game 5 for the Aces to close out that team, even when the people were playing without their best players in Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston.

And as impressive as it is that the Aces have gotten to this point — considering, you know, they were under 500 at the midway point of the regular season — I just haven't been totally sold by their consistency during the playoffs.

Whereas the Mercury have just looked so much tighter, so much more composed and so much more solid to their identity that I believe that, you know, Alyssa Thomas will finally break through. I think Satou Sabally is shooting the ball pretty well, and that makes them incredibly difficult to guard.

And I've just been very impressed by Nate Tibbetts and the way he's put his players in a position to succeed. Fun little nugget about this matchup is that both of the coaches are from South Dakota and actually grew up playing high school basketball the same year. Becky Hammon actually played against teams coached by Nate Tibbetts’ dad in South Dakota.

So they have a very long history going back against one another. But all that to say is that I think Nate has figured out how this Mercury team works and they're just playing better than Las Vegas is right now. And as much as I went on this little rant about momentum earlier, I do believe that that quality of play is going to hold up over this final series.

BRODIE: All right, let me ask you one other question before I let you go, Sabreena. The WNBA commissioner is expected to speak leading up to the finals tipping off tonight. And it's been a bit of a week for her after getting some criticism from —

MERCHANT: You might say.

BRODIE: Yeah, from some star players. What are you expecting her to say? What are you listening for from her today?

MERCHANT: You know, I think the first thing would be how she characterizes the conversations that Napheesa Collier related and if she would share the same words that Napheesa Collier’s did in terms of describing, like, players being grateful for WNBA, giving them their platform. And, you know, being beholden basically the WNBA for every good thing that has come towards them.

I also wonder how she's going to try to spin the public messaging so that the league can get more people on their side in terms of these negotiations. I know the word sustainability is probably going to come up quite a bit just in terms of how the league needs to retain some of its revenue and profits to keep the league functioning, as opposed to giving it to the players.

But mostly I just wonder how accountable the league is going to try to be for the issues that the players have pointed out — not just during this week, but over the course of the regular season. Or if it's going to be more of, "We're the best league in the world, we have the best officials in the world, we're putting a great product on the court, and we look forward to maintaining the status quo."

So, it'll certainly be a night in Las Vegas with all of these things happening.