The WNBA finals of 2025 are ready to advance on Friday night in Las Vegas, with the construction of the dynasty assuming the self -proclaimed PHOENIX Mercury loser.
The four -time MVP A’JA Wilson is back in the final after an absence of one year, after having won consecutive titles in 2022 and 2023. Phoenix was the finalist of the 2021 finals and won a championship in 2014 for the last time in 2014, when Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Dewanna Bonner led the load. Bonner is back with the team, but it is the trio of Alyssa Thomas, Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper that drives this Mercury team.
Advertisement
So what squad will come at the top? Cassandra Negley and Maggie Hendricks of Yahoo Sports make their series predictions, Factor X and final MVP selections.
(Yahoo Sports TV is here! Look live shows and highlights 24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
Cassandra Negley elections
Las Vegas Aces in 6
At this time of the season it is difficult to choose against the experience of the championship, and the ACES have it on swords. But it will not be easy, and it has not been to this point. They needed a key offensive rebound from Jackie Young with a lost shot by A’JA Wilson to escape Seattle. And earlier this week, they needed overt cubes of Chelsea Gray clutch to avoid being eliminated by Indiana. Those are the types of small contributions of which the Vegas is capable, and it will be more likely that they give in a long series that have passed many times before. Phoenix will have more to juggle with a step in a stage that brings much more houpla.
Advertisement
Mercury X-Factor: Monique Akoa Makani
Akoa Makani could have easily been in the All-Rookie team for the production he gave to Mercury in a starting basis. It is his defense that highlights and could change this series. In the first round, Ionescu of the former Sabrina Ionescu, and in the second round, Courtney Williams, which needed to be aggressive for Lynx to move forward.
In this series, hinder the shots for Young will be a cousin, as well as gray in the clutch. And Dana Evans has been a key taxpayer in her banking minutes.
ACES X-FACTOR: DANA EVANS, LAS VEGAS ACES
Evans is a classic choice of X factors in the sense that it leaves the bank that plays fundamental minutes instead of the guards who have the task of the required production of a champion. In three of the five playoff games that the Aces won, he scored at least two digits with multiple assists. ACES could use Evans, whom the chief coach Becky Hammon calls “gears”, to enter one high the next two weeks.
Advertisement
MVP of the finals: Jackie Young, Las Vegas Aces
The players of the front cover eat a large part of the WNBA awards, and with all probability, if Wilson continues to average 26 points as it has done in the postseason, this is yours. But do not overlook Young, the dangerous second head of the Aces offensive that averages a better quarter 20.5 and shoots 54.1% from the field. It is the sixth best brand of any player in the postseason that averages at least 15 minutes per game.
If Wilson is locked in points in the finals again, Young’s contributions will be even more obvious.
Maggie Hendricks selections
Phoenix Mercury in 7
Throughout the semifinals, the coach of Mercury, Nate Tibbetts, continued to insist that his team was the helpless, even after his team took an advantage of the 2-1 series. But Phoenix is ​​a team that has discovered how to play together and shine exactly at the right time. His core of Kahleah Copper, Alyssa Thomas and Satou, knew how formidable they are when they knocked out the two final teams of 2024 in the first two rounds of playoffs. Being Las Vegas, a team with a lot of experience in winning everything, will not be easy or fast. But they can have the advantage.
Advertisement
X-Factor Series: Rebounding
Maybe it is a cliché to say it, but the foundations remain key to winning, even at the highest basketball levels. Phoenix has managed to overcome his opponents so far in the playoffs, which has led them to limit the points of their opponents in the painting. Las Vegas overcoming can stop the rapid outputs of the Aces and the second chance points.
MVP Final: Alyssa Thomas, Phoenix Mercury
Alyssa Thomas has played in 54 playoff games. With Connecticut, he competed twice in the WNBA finals, losing to Washington in a series of five games very disputed in 2019, and then Las Vegas in 2022. In fact, even with all this playoff experience, he has never won a championship ring. But in Phoenix, he has a support franchise and a team full of players that can help her shine. Thomas has the capacity and impulse to take care of these finals, and finally win everything.
(Tagstotranslate) Alyssa Thomas
Source link