{"id":187154,"date":"2025-10-03T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/187154\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T09:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:54:07","slug":"wnba-finals-odds-picks-aces-vs-mercury-a-close-call-with-aja-wilson-alyssa-thomas-top-for-finals-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/187154\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Finals odds, picks: Aces vs. Mercury a close call with A\u2019ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas top for Finals MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonight tips off the longest finals of the longest \u2014 and most-hyped<\/a> \u2014 WNBA season of all time. For the first time, the WNBA Finals will be a best-of-seven series, with the No. 2-seeded Las Vegas Aces and No. 4 Phoenix Mercury commencing their final push for the title Friday night at 8 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Vegas hosts Game 1 as the better seed and will host Game 2 and, if necessary, Games 5 and 7. As the top seed and first with home-court advantage, the Aces are also the betting favorites to win it all \u2014 but boy are these odds close.<\/p>\n

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Vegas is lined at -125 odds to win it, which implies a 55 percent likelihood of winning the title for the franchise\u2019s third time (they won it in 2022 and 2023). The flaming-hot Mercury, meanwhile, are just barely behind at +105.<\/p>\n

The Mercury already have one more championship to their name than the Aces, but all came before this decade, in 2007, 2009 and 2014, a year when they had stars Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner. They made the Finals in 2021 but lost to the Chicago Sky.<\/p>\n

This year, the Aces and Mercury have met four times in the regular season, and the Aces are 3-1. But this Mercury team has looked different in the postseason.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a breakdown of the odds for both the WNBA Finals and Finals MVP, plus staff picks from our WNBA experts Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant.<\/p>\n

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WNBA Finals odds<\/p>\n

The Aces are bringing back a big chunk of their 2022 and 2023 championship squads with their coach, Becky Hammon, still at the helm and five players, including No. 1 picks A\u2019ja Wilson and Jackie Young, and the Unrivaled league\u2019s first-ever Finals MVP, Chelsea Gray.<\/p>\n

They had a hard-won path through the playoffs to make it here, though. They went 2-1 vs. Seattle and squeaked through Game 3 with a one-point win (74-73), only to face the upstart Indiana Fever (without Caitlin Clark), who would push them to a full five games. It took an overtime win (107-98) in Game 5 to clinch their Finals berth.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas opened at second-place in the title odds (+400 or 4-to-1 odds) behind the New York Liberty and tied with the Minnesota Lynx, both of whom Phoenix beat to get to the Finals.<\/p>\n

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As that last sentence suggests, the Mercury are on a different trajectory entirely. They opened in seventh place at +4000 odds (40-to-1) to win the title, a less than 3 percent probability. Then they went on that wild, improbable, thrilling run through the top two favorites to earn their spot in the 2025 Finals.<\/p>\n

They are the first team in WNBA history to reach the Finals twice in a five-year span without any of the same players. It has been something to see Alyssa Thomas (averaging 18.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and 9.1 assists this postseason), Satou Sabally (17.9\/7.4\/2.3) and DeWanna Bonner (7.3\/6.7\/1.3) balling out.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and Bonner and Thomas are engaged in case you needed anything more exciting to throw in.<\/p>\n

The Mercury benefited in the first two playoff rounds from injuries to major stars on their opponents\u2019 teams: Breanna Stewart on the Liberty and Napheesa Collier on the Lynx. They are coming in hotter than the Aces, but will a near-full-strength Vegas team with an MVP at the top of her game cool their flow?<\/p>\n

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Las Vegas is a 2.5-point favorite in Game 1.<\/p>\n

WNBA Finals MVP odds<\/p>\n

The odds here indicate the general wisdom: If the Aces win, four-time WNBA MVP and one-time Finals MVP Wilson will get the nod. If the Mercury win, it\u2019ll be Thomas.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t always play out according to general knowledge, of course: Last year, Stewart was the favorite to win it, but when the Liberty clinched the title, it was Jonquel Jones who received the Finals MVP on the strength of a 17.8-point, 7.6-rebound, 56-percent shooting average across the Finals and a lights-out, pivotal Game 5 performance.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, here are our staff picks for the finals winner and MVP.<\/p>\n

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Staff picks for WNBA Finals and Finals MVPSabreena Merchant: Mercury in six, Satou Sabally MVP<\/p>\n

It is very risky to pick a team without homecourt advantage that lost the regular-season series, but it felt like Phoenix was holding back some cards during those earlier matchups. The Mercury are clicking now. They are long, aggressive and versatile as well as deep enough to get through a seven-game series. \u2014Merchant<\/p>\n

Ben Pickman: Mercury in six, Alyssa Thomas MVPHannah Vanbiber: Aces in seven, A\u2019ja Wilson MVP<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Aces, Phoenix Mercury, WNBA, Sports Betting<\/p>\n

2025 The Athletic Media Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonight tips off the longest finals of the longest \u2014 and most-hyped \u2014 WNBA season of all time.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4662,4652,4657,23311,49,735,48,726,16298,93952,2803,4661,12200,3460,8456,93953,736,729,3457,3461,4659,7675,82,25836,630,15457],"class_list":["post-187154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-brittney-griner","tag-ca","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-chicago-sky","tag-dewanna-bonner","tag-finals-mvp","tag-indiana-fever","tag-jackie-young","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-mercury","tag-mercury-team","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-satou-sabally","tag-seattle","tag-sports","tag-the-mercury","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187154","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=187154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}