The Phoenix Mercury got the better of the New York Liberty three out of four games in the 2025 regular season, but on Sunday everything resets against the defending WNBA champions with the first round of the playoffs on tap.
As the No. 4 seed, the Mercury have the luxury of home-court advantage at PHX Arena and are seeking to get past the opening round for the first time since 2021 when they reached the WNBA Finals. It will take getting by the reigning Liberty to even have a shot at their first title since 2014.
Phoenix (27-17) pieced together its best winning percentage (.614) since its third championship, where it went 29-5 (.853). And it did so having only retained one player from coach Nate Tibbetts’ first season in 2024 (All-Star Kahleah Copper).
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Mercury to enter playoffs as No. 4 seed, will face defending-champion Liberty
Mercury to enter playoffs as No. 4 seed, will face defending-champion Liberty
Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren joined Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Thursday to recap the unexpected — at least to the external eye — success and challenge ahead with New York coming to town.
“If you would’ve told me at the beginning of the year that we’d be the four seed and have home-court advantage, I would have taken that and ran with it,” U’Ren said. “(New York’s) got players of extreme capability and experience. … The first (Game 1) adjustment can’t be to play harder.
“I’ve been a part of a lot of NBA playoff series and those are seven games. And so often it’s like the first adjustment is just like realizing playoff intensity and playoff speed. And in the three-game series, you can’t have that.”
With MVP-like performances from forward Alyssa Thomas, game-in and game-out contributions from Copper and Satou Sabally and championship experience and sharpshooting from Sami Whitcomb, the Mercury rattled off two six-game win streaks to stay up with the league’s best all season.
A look at how both teams stack up and the biggest storylines.
2025 series recap: Mercury vs. Liberty
June 19: Mercury 89, Liberty 81 (Brooklyn, NY)
June 27: Mercury 106, Liberty 91 (Phoenix, AZ)
July 25: Liberty 89, Mercury 76 (Brooklyn, NY)
Aug. 30: Mercury 80, Liberty 63 (Phoenix, AZ)
Phoenix protected its home well with double-digit wins about two months apart, though Tibbetts acknowledged both teams had missing pieces in every contest.
“I would say probably game four was the closest (to each team being whole) but they were without Sabrina (Ionescu),” Tibbetts told reporters on Saturday. “They kind of tried a new rotation with three bigs. I think they’ll be some carry over.”
Limiting the lights-out shooting Ionescu will be among the keys to having success against the Liberty, as the Mercury won the first two meetings with her a combined 5-for-25 from the field. In their lone loss to New York, Ionescu scored a game-high 29 points and had 11-of-21 shooting.
Besides generally defending the 3-point line well, Tibbetts also emphasized rebounding against a very tall lineup featuring 6-foot-6 Jonquel Jones (8.1 rebounds per game this season). He said Natasha Mack, at 6-foot-4, covered Jones well but the team needs to lock them up as a whole.
“We got to rebound collectively, we got to have all five (involved),” Tibbetts said. “Game four that we played them this year was a good test when they went three bigs (Brenna Stewart, Jones and Leonie Fiebich). We’ll see if they go back to that or not. We’ve faced teams with size, but we got to do collectively as a group.”
When Stewart, Jones and Ionescu have started and finished games, the Liberty are undefeated (13-0) this season.
Alyssa Thomas continuing MVP-caliber season
Though Thomas didn’t record one of her eight triple-doubles this year against New York, but the forward who has averaged 15.4 points put up 18, 17, 20 and 14 points in all four meetings.
She had some of her most efficient shooting nights as well, with at least 50% from the field in each game, featuring a 7-of-11 performance on June 27 where she also added nine rebounds and 15 assists.
Here are some of the numbers that defined Thomas’ 2025 regular season.
23 double-doubles (tied for most in WNBA with Chicago’s Angel Reese) 357 assists (WNBA single season record) 8.8 rebounds per game, 53.2% shooting (both top-10 marks in WNBA) Mercury 25-14 with Thomas as a starter“If you look at her career, she just doesn’t lose,” U’Ren said. “She wills you to victory and she controls the game. There’s so few players that raise their level to when the competition ratchets up to such a degree. She’s such a competitor. She makes others better. … Whether she gets a league MVP or not, she’s absolutely deserving of it and being in the conversation.”
Sabally sisters square off
Phoenix’s Sabally, a consistent game starter (all 39 games), will face off against her sister, Nyara Sabally.
Nyara, a 2022 first round draft pick out of Oregon, has made 17 appearances (10 starts) in her third season with the Liberty. She has averaged 5.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and 0.8 assists. The 25-year-old, who is two years younger than older sis Satou, played in the first two Mercury-Liberty games this season and popped off for a season-high 16 points (6-of-7 shooting) on June 27.
As a further quick comparison, Satou is a three-time WNBA All-Star (2021, ’23, ’25) while Nyara is a WNBA champion and two-time All-Pac-12 player.
Breaking the seal on the WNBA playoffs first round
Each of its previous two playoff appearances (2024 and 2022), the Mercury have bowed out of the playoffs after the first round.
When Phoenix last went to the WNBA Finals in 2021 — losing to the eventual champion Chicago Sky — now-New York coach Sandy Brondello was at the helm. Brondello led the Mercury to the playoffs in all of her eight seasons with the franchise and they made it to at least the second round in all but one season.
In Tibbetts’ second go with Phoenix, he’ll have to go through a Phoenix staple in order to show improvement in a year full of unknowns.
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