What could potentially be the final WNBA postseason run for Diana Taurasi begins Sunday when the Phoenix Mercury visit the Minnesota Lynx in Minneapolis for Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs.
Taurasi, 42, hasn’t yet confirmed that this WNBA season is her last one, but the league’s all-time leading scorer and 11-time All-Star gave an emotional speech to Mercury fans on Thursday after Phoenix (19-21) lost to the Seattle Storm in the regular-season finale.
“If it is the last time,” Taurasi said before being interrupted by fans who chanted “one-more-year!”
After her speech, Taurasi told reporters, “There’s still days where I’m like, I can still do this. I still want to play basketball. And then there’s the flip side, when there are days where I’m crawling out of bed, and that’s I guess a struggle you have when you get to this point in your career.
“You have to do so much to be able to get back on the court, and it’s bittersweet in a lot of ways,” she continued. “Once the season’s over, I think I’ll have a better idea of what it looks like for me in the future.”
Phoenix is the only team Taurasi has played for in her 20 years in the WNBA, helping them win championships in 2007, 2009 and 2014. Fresh off securing her record sixth gold medal at the Summer Olympics, the task in front of her now is powering the Mercury on one more deep postseason run.
She’s third on the team in scoring this season behind Team USA teammates Kahleah Copper and Brittney Griner, averaging 14.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. Taurasi is the league’s all-time leader with 10,646 career points.
Up first on that road for seventh-seeded Phoenix is a game at second-seeded Minnesota (30-10) in a best-of-three series.
The Lynx, who won the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup earlier this season, have been powered by a career-best season from forward Napheesa Collier — who, like Taurasi, was a member of the Olympic squad and also starred at UConn. Collier, in her sixth WNBA season, is averaging 20.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game while shooting 49.2 percent from the floor.
Were A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces not having a historically dominant season, Collier would be seen as a leading contender for the league MVP award.
“I think this year (Collier) is just playing with a little bit more tenacity and that expectation that she has of herself, that quiet confidence,” Lynx guard Kayla McBride told ESPN. “It’s always impressive to me how she handles it and carries it, and she has taken it to another level this year, for sure.”
Minnesota went 3-1 in the regular season against Phoenix, most recently notching an 89-76 win over the Mercury on Aug. 28 with McBride scoring a game-high 19 points.
–Field Level Media
