{"id":189443,"date":"2025-09-29T08:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T08:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/189443\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T08:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T08:50:07","slug":"mercury-seal-sixth-finals-spot-as-tibbetts-hails-teams-pride-and-togetherness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/189443\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury seal sixth finals spot as Tibbetts hails team\u2019s \u2018pride and togetherness\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts heralded the &#8220;pride and togetherness&#8221; of his team as they\u00a0clinched their sixth WNBA finals berth, and first since 2021, with an 86-81 win over the Minnesota Lynx in the fourth game of the semi-finals, sealing the series 3-1.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercury trailed by 14 early and by 13 entering the fourth quarter, yet they stormed back with a 31-point final frame to complete a series-clinching victory.<\/p>\n<p>They became just the third team in WNBA history to overturn a 13+ point deficit in the fourth quarter of a playoff game \u2014 and the first ever to rally from multiple 14+ point holes in the same series.<\/p>\n<p>They will now face the winner of Las Vegas Aces and\u00a0Indiana Fever in the championship round.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Alyssa Thomas always delivers<\/p>\n<p>She dropped her 28th playoff double-double in the Mercury&#8217;s dub \u2014 the MOST in WNBA history, passing Tamika Catchings and Candace Parker!<\/p>\n<p>WNBA Playoffs | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Google?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@google<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UchpK6C7fL\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/UchpK6C7fL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gmK3TGRbvc\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/gmK3TGRbvc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WNBA (@WNBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WNBA\/status\/1972522299384627388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">September 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one has had expectations for us except ourselves,\u201d coach Nate Tibbetts said. \u201cThe pride and the togetherness for such a new group, it\u2019s pretty impressive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe could have just said, \u2018You know, we\u2019ll go to Game 5 in Minnesota and figure it out\u2019 \u2026 but we kept fighting.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u201cThat\u2019s what we do \u2026 we just kept playing, and when you do that, especially with this group, good things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alyssa Thomas starred with 23 points, 10 assists, and her 28th career playoff double-double, breaking her own WNBA record. She also became the first player to record 20 points and 10 assists in multiple series-clinching games in a single postseason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believed in the franchise; I believed in the team they were putting together,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it was a fresh start to play with people who want the same thing as I do and a franchise that\u2019s known for winning \u2014 winning championships. That\u2019s been my goal: trying to get a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts heralded the &#8220;pride and togetherness&#8221; of his team as they\u00a0clinched their sixth WNBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[5262,1079,99,5261,92072,434],"class_list":["post-189443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-social","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-sporty","tag-sportytv","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189443","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=189443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}