Associated Press<\/p>\n
PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Allisha Gray<\/a> scored 28 points, Brittney Griner<\/a> had 17 points and eight rebounds against her former team and the Atlanta Dream<\/a> beat the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> 90-79 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n Griner made her return to Phoenix where she played 11 seasons with the Mercury, helping lead them to the 2014 WNBA<\/a> title and an appearance in the 2021 finals. The Mercury honored Griner with a tribute video before the game, with longtime teammate Diana Taurasi<\/a> sitting courtside.<\/p>\n Gray gave Atlanta an 84-71 lead with 3:03 left before Sami Whitcomb<\/a> made 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to get Phoenix within seven points. Griner answered with a basket in the lane to extend Atlanta’s lead to 86-77.<\/p>\n Jordin Canada added 14 points and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough<\/a> scored 11 for Atlanta (14-10), which won for the second time in five games. Rhyne Howard<\/a>, Atlanta’s second-leading scorer at 16.5 points per game, did not play. Gray made 10 of 16 shots for her 10th 20-point game this.<\/p>\n Satou Sabally<\/a> and Kahleah Copper<\/a> returned to the starting lineup for Phoenix (15-8) after being out since July 3 due to injuries.<\/p>\n Sabally finished with 13 points, Copper added 10 and DeWanna Bonner<\/a> scored 18. Alyssa Thomas<\/a> had seven points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.<\/p>\n Gray scored 13 points in the first half to help Atlanta take a 39-34 lead. Phoenix shot just 29.7% from the field, including 3 of 15 from 3-point range, but stayed close by making all nine of its free-throw attempts. <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Allisha Gray scored 28 points, Brittney Griner had 17 points and eight rebounds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-33142","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\/33142","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=33142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}