Satou Sabally scored 15 of her 23 points in the fourth quarter and the host Phoenix Mercury beat the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx 84-76 on Friday to take a 2-1 edge in their WNBA semifinal series.
Alyssa Thomas amassed 21 points, nine rebounds and eight assists while Kahleah Copper also scored 21 points for Phoenix. Thomas passed Sue Bird for the second-most assists in WNBA playoff history.
“We probably envisioned more of this throughout the year than we had,” Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said. “This is what we had hoped for, right? They’ve stepped up in big moments.”
The fourth-seeded Mercury, who finished the game on a 9-0 run in the last 3 1/2 minutes, can close out the best-of-five series on Sunday at home for their first WNBA Finals appearance since 2021.
Natisha Hiedeman had a career-playoff high 19 points, Napheesa Collier added 17 and Courtney Williams contributed 14 for the Lynx, who have lost two games in a row for only the second time this season.
Thomas stole the ball from Collier and made a layup for an 82-76 lead with 21.8 seconds remaining, after which Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve stormed the court in protest. Reeve, who was arguing what she considered to be excessive contract on Collier, was given a second technical foul on the night and was ejected.
Collier went to the floor and grabbed her left ankle on the play, and she was helped to the locker room.
Sabally made all 11 of her free-throws attempts, hitting the final two after the technical foul on Reeve and another at the same time on Minnesota associate head coach Eric Thibault.
Reeve was still furious after the game, unleashing an expletive-laden tirade.
“This is the look that our league wants, for some reason,” the Minnesota coach said. “We were trying to play through it, we tried not to make excuses. One of the best players in the league (Collier) shot zero free throws. Zero, and she had five fouls. Zero free throws. Got her shoulder pulled out and finished the game with her leg being taken out, and probably has a fracture.
“And so this is what our league wants. OK. But I want to call for a change in leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating. It’s bad for the game.”
Tibbetts wouldn’t weigh in on the topic.
“We haven’t talked about the officiating all playoffs,” he said. “We just play. We’re worried about us.”
Collier, Williams and Hiedeman did not score in the fourth quarter, going a combined 0-for-7 from the floor against a Mercury defense that limited the Lynx to nine fourth-quarter points on 3-of-16 (18.8 percent) shooting from the floor. The Lynx hit 42.3 percent of their field-goal attempts on the night, while the Mercury made 46.2 percent.
Maria Kliundikova gave Minnesota a 76-75 lead on a driving layup with 3:31 remaining, but the Lynx did not score again. Kliundikova scored six of her eight points in the fourth.
The Mercury’s eight-point winning margin was their largest of the game, which had 15 lead changes.
–Field Level Media
