{"id":156892,"date":"2025-09-20T15:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/156892\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:57:07","slug":"alyssa-thomas-20-point-triple-double-leads-mercury-past-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/156892\/","title":{"rendered":"Alyssa Thomas’ 20-point triple-double leads Mercury past Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX — There will be a new WNBA champion in 2025. Alyssa Thomas<\/a> made sure of it.<\/p>\n

Thomas recorded the first 20-point triple-double in WNBA postseason history as the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> advanced to the semifinals by eliminating the defending champion New York Liberty<\/a> 79-73<\/a> in Game 3 on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who added 11 rebounds and 11 assists, has nine triple-doubles this season and owns five of the seven WNBA playoff triple-doubles. She is just the second player to have a triple-double in a winner-take-all game, following Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes in 2005.<\/p>\n

“This is just what she does,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. “She impacts the game in so many different ways. She cares about one thing and that’s winning. When you’ve got a player of her caliber and with that much pride to win a game, you’re going to have a great game.”<\/p>\n

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“MVP” chants rang out from the PHX Arena crowd as Thomas shot free throws with 17.6 seconds left. Earlier Friday, she was named a finalist for the award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who spent 11 seasons in Connecticut<\/a> before being traded to Phoenix during the offseason, embraced Tibbetts and then teammate and partner DeWanna Bonner<\/a> when the buzzer sounded. The fourth-seeded Mercury advanced to face the top-seeded Lynx<\/a> in the best-of-five semifinal round, which begins Sunday in Minnesota (5 p.m. ET, ESPN).<\/p>\n

“AT is incredible,” Liberty forward Breanna Stewart<\/a> said. “While this sucks, I’m excited to see what she continues to do with the rest of the playoffs because we had a nightmare guarding her. I’m sure everybody else will, too.”<\/p>\n

Stewart nearly kept the Liberty’s title defense alive. With 2:17 to go, her layup pulled New York within three. But perhaps no single play ended up mattering more down the stretch than Bonner’s one-footed fadeaway from 13 feet to beat the shot clock with 1:13 remaining. It hit the front of the rim and bounced up and in to push Phoenix’s lead to five.<\/p>\n

“She’s a tough shotmaker,” Tibbetts said. “And she made a tough one down the stretch.”<\/p>\n

The Mercury’s big three — Kahleah Copper<\/a>, Satou Sabally<\/a> and Thomas — combined to score or assist on 74 of the team’s 79 points. Sabally had her first career playoff double-double with 23 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Phoenix also dominated on the glass, finishing with a 49-33 rebounding edge. Copper snagged nine boards in addition to her 12 points, which included an acrobatic layup in traffic that restored Phoenix’s five-point lead with 32.8 seconds left.<\/p>\n

“AT is incredible,” Liberty forward Breanna Stewart said of Alyssa Thomas. “While this sucks, I’m excited to see what she continues to do with the rest of the playoffs because we had a nightmare guarding her. I’m sure everybody else will, too.”\u00a0Joe Camporeale\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n

“Phoenix executed better when it really mattered,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said.<\/p>\n

Stewart, who sprained her MCL during overtime of New York’s Game 1 victory, finished with 30 points, nine rebounds, two blocks and two steals. She scored all 14 of the Liberty’s points in the fourth quarter. Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> added 22 points, six rebounds and six assists.<\/p>\n

“When I got hurt on Sunday, I could barely walk out of this arena,” Stewart said. “I was really worried that I tore something. I’m really grateful for not doing that, and if there was a slight chance I could play, I was going to be out here with my team. But trying to be my best and really focusing on getting back and focusing on myself and doing whatever I could to keep us in it, and it wasn’t enough. So while it might be memorable, it still sucks.”<\/p>\n

Phoenix and Minnesota have played four times, with the Lynx winning the regular-season series 3-1. Copper and Thomas missed the first two games and Copper and Sabally missed the second two.<\/p>\n

“They haven’t seen us full strength,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n

Added Sabally: “We’re excited. Round 2, let’s get it.”<\/p>\n

ESPN Research contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX — There will be a new WNBA champion in 2025. Alyssa Thomas made sure of it. Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-156892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}