The defending WNBA champion New York Liberty are on the road to open the 2025 playoffs, as they earned the No. 5 seed in the league despite an injury-filled campaign.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll take on a veteran Phoenix Mercury squad \u2013 led by Kahleah Copper, Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally \u2013 in the first round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Game 1 is set for Sunday evening, and oddsmakers at the best betting sites<\/a> have the Liberty set as road favorites in this matchup.<\/p>\n Can Breanna Stewart and company make a deep playoff run to reach the Finals for the third season in a row?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a breakdown of Game 1 of this first-round matchup, including the latest odds, players to watch in the prop market and my prediction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a><\/p>\n Spread<\/p>\n Moneyline<\/p>\n Total<\/p>\n Liberty Injury ReportMercury Injury ReportMercury Best WNBA Prop Bet<\/p>\n Mercury forward Satou Sabally has struggled as of late, averaging just 13.9 points in 21 games after the All-Star break while shooting just 11.3 shots per game. Sabally has just eight games during that stretch where she scored more than 14.5 points.<\/p>\n In her two meetings with the Liberty since the break, Sabally had just 14 and six points, and I\u2019m not buying her in this matchup against a Liberty team that was in the top half of the league in defensive rating in 2025 despite a ton of injuries in the regular season.<\/p>\n At even money, the UNDER for this prop is worth a look in Game 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n New York won its final three games of the regular season, and I\u2019m buying the Liberty coming into the playoffs as long as they can stay healthy.<\/p>\n New York was 22-9 when Breanna Stewart was in the lineup this season, although it did win just one of three meetings with the Mercury in the regular season.<\/p>\n Ultimately, New York\u2019s experience in the playoffs as a unit is something I don\u2019t want to underrate. The Liberty have made back-to-back trips to the Finals with the core of Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu, and now they\u2019re taking on a Mercury team that has a lot of new pieces from last season.<\/p>\n Copper, Thomas and Sabally all have playoff experience, but the Liberty trio may be more talented and has a couple of former league MVPs on the roster.<\/p>\n Phoenix\u2019s offense is a concern (No. 7 in the W), as the Liberty are one of the best offenses in the league whenever Stewie is on the court and still finished in the top five in offensive rating during the regular season.<\/p>\n I lean with the Liberty to win Game 1 on the road on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pick: Liberty Moneyline (-135 at DraftKings)<\/a><\/p>\n Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.<\/p>\n Claim the latest\u00a0<\/a>DraftKings promo code<\/a>\u00a0offer today. Sign up and place a $5 bet to earn a guaranteed\u00a0$200 in bonus bets plus over $200 off NFL Sunday Ticket<\/a>.\u00a0Regardless of the outcome of your wager,DraftKings will add eight $25 bonus bet tokens to your new account and award one promo code for a discounted NFL Sunday ticket subscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending WNBA champion New York Liberty are on the road to open the 2025 playoffs, as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-143564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}