{"id":104617,"date":"2025-08-23T16:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T16:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/104617\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T16:15:07","slug":"mercury-move-back-into-top-four-in-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/104617\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury Move Back into Top Four in Standings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phoenix Mercury’s win against the Golden State Valkyries on Friday wasn’t just good for restoring momentum and getting the team’s offense back on track<\/a>. The win bumped Phoenix’s record up to 22-14, pulling them ahead of the New York Liberty (also 22-14) for fourth place in the WNBA standings, thanks to a tiebreaker. <\/p>\n

Phoenix had lost their grip on fourth following a lopsided loss to the Las Vegas Aces,<\/a> who have vaulted from the bottom of the playoff picture all the way up to third, thanks to a nine-game win streak, but they got a bit of good luck in the form of the defending champion New York Liberty losing an absolute shocker at home to the Chicago Sky, who have the third-worst record in the league and have won just two of their last 10. <\/p>\n

The Liberty have lost three of their last four themselves, and are going through a bit of a rough patch in August. Two losses to the Minnesota Lynx and one on the road to the Aces aren’t exactly cause for concern, but they’ve also lost by 16 to the Connecticut Sun, and now at home to the struggling Sky. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jun 27, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Phoenix Mercury guard Kahleah Copper (2) guards New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu (20) during the second half at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images \/ Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Even with injury issues, nobody expected the Liberty to potentially play a road playoff series in the first round, and Phoenix is in a prime opportunity to take advantage of their recent slide. The Mercury’s next two games are against two teams — the Los Angeles Sparks and the Sky — who are not currently in playoff position, with their fourth and final game against the Liberty coming up after that on August 30th. <\/p>\n

Moving Up<\/p>\n

Phoenix is 2-1 against New York for the year, and a win in their final game would secure the head-to-head tiebreaker with just five regular season games remaining. <\/p>\n

Despite the Liberty not looking like their usual selves lately, if Phoenix is going to play an ultra-talented team with championship experience like New York far earlier in the postseason than anyone would expect, home court advantage<\/a> could give the Mercury the edge they need to pull off the upset. <\/p>\n

Having home court advantage in that final regular season matchup won’t hurt, either. It’s very likely to be the biggest game of the rest of the season for both teams, and it’ll be must-see television, as both teams look to round into peak playoff form<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Head over to our Facebook<\/a> and X<\/a> pages for all things Phoenix Mercury. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Mercury’s win against the Golden State Valkyries on Friday wasn’t just good for restoring momentum and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-104617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}