NEW YORK — The Phoenix Mercury, facing a Game 2 with their backs against the wall, conveyed no sense of desperation or urgency. An arguably lackadaisical Nate Tibbetts insisted both the Mercury and New York Liberty probably felt confident after Game 1. In Alyssa Thomas’ blunt assessment, the Mercury simply needed to make more of their open shot attempts.
The proof for their calm quickly became clear as they rattled the reigning champions and stunned a Barclays Center crowd accustomed to eruption. It was barely a fair fight, as Phoenix led by as many as 31 points and finished out an 86-60 rout on Wednesday night in Game 2 of their first-round series.
“It’s not won in one game and like I’ve been saying, that’s the beauty of a series,” Thomas said. “We don’t want this season to be done.”
The winner-take-all Game 3 will be at PHX Arena on Friday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN2). Three of the four first-round series are heading to a deciding game. The No. 5 Liberty and No. 4 Mercury are the only ones of that bunch to win on the road.
Satou Sabally & Alyssa Thomas had impressive performances in the win.
✔️Satou – 15 PTS | 7 REB | 4 AST | 4 STL | 2 3PM
✔️Thomas – 15 PTS | 6 REB | 7 AST
Their efforts helped Phoenix achieve their…
New York came home in control despite not playing its best basketball, but instead looked shellshocked and lost. The talk of the three days between games centered on their home-court advantage and the availability of their two-time WNBA champion, Breanna Stewart. Fortune seemed to favor them finally.
Oh, Stewart is in fact starting? Cool. The Mercury never cared either way as it pertained to their game plan. Even with a healthy Stewart, who sprained her left MCL in Game 1’s overtime, the Mercury were one bucket away from a 1-0 series lead on Sunday. They refused to get too low or too high in the three days since.
“I didn’t think that there was any heads down, or where we felt sorry for ourselves,” Tibbetts said. “I believe we had a chance. We played a good game, and it didn’t go our way. And I was proud in the way we approached these last two days coming into tonight.”
Fighting for their season in Game 2, the Mercury didn’t mess around with slim margins. Phoenix sped out on a 20-3 run while the Liberty failed to make a field goal for more than seven minutes. What was a one-possession game at 8:37 of the second quarter swelled into a 19-point smackdown with ninety seconds to go before halftime.
The Mercury run sent the Liberty into a tizzy possession by possession. A reassessment in the locker room didn’t solve a thing. Phoenix flummoxed every emerging Liberty thought of a handoff, disrupted everything anywhere close to the paint and sent players crashing to the court on screens.
Shots that usually fall bounced out, ranging from automatic layups to Sabrina Ionescu’s classic 3s that send Barclays buzzing. Phoenix scored 10 times as many fast break points as New York, 20-2. And the Liberty couldn’t help themselves out with a 16-of-25 showing at the free-throw line.
“We’re a way better team than what we showed today, so it was disappointing with that,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said.
Figure
The @PhoenixMercury force a Game 3 as they defeat the New York Liberty 86-60 🦾
Satou Sabally & Alyssa Thomas had impressive performances in the win.
✔️Satou – 15 PTS | 7 REB | 4 AST | 4 STL | 2 3PM
✔️Thomas – 15 PTS | 6 REB | 7 ASTTheir efforts helped Phoenix achieve their… pic.twitter.com/15fV7ygFMi— WNBA (@WNBA) September 18, 2025
Tibbetts mentioned multiple times this week that their Mercury weren’t favored in the series.
“We’re embracing it,” he said on Wednesday.
The Liberty, talent-wise, are better than the No. 5 seed they secured after an injury-riddled campaign. It didn’t matter that the Mercury were also without different pairings of their big three at various points throughout the season — including in the matchups against the Liberty.
Thomas, Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper combined for 44 points each in Game 2, playing fewer than 30 minutes with the game out of reach. Thomas added 7 assists and 6 rebounds. Sabally rightened her shooting percentage from an abysmal 1-of-17 in Game 1, chipping in 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals. Copper added 2 rebounds on a clean 5-of-9 day for a plus-25, trailing only sixth player DeWanna Bonner (plus 29).
There was little consideration given to the Mercury’s defensive intensity or ability to, as Jonquel Jones put it, “muck things up.” They limited the Liberty to 63 points last month, five off the team’s season low. In regulation of Game 1, New York scored 65. And in Game 2, Phoenix gave up 10 field goals in the first quarter and nine the rest of the way. Four of those were in the fourth quarter, with all the starters benched.
“We wanted to send this to a Game 3 and I think you could feel that out there tonight,” Thomas said. “Every possession, every loose ball, every rebound, we were fighting like it was the last one.”
The Liberty lacked any such backbone in what could be the final 40 minutes played on their home court this season. The pregame hype video in Barclays asked if opponents forgot they were entering the house of the defending champions.
That’s all well and good in urging fans to raise their rally towels and flashing bracelets. But the Liberty players themselves will tell you that was last year. This group can’t fall back on that title to win another. And the prospect of a semifinal berth, let alone a repeat, is slipping through their grasp. Neither team is feeling confident about this result.
Said Ionescu: “We know that we got to play better next game because this shouldn’t be the end and how we leave them.”
