For the second time in three years, the Phoenix Mercury are WNBA Champions.
Diana Taurasi was named the Finals MVP and spoke about teamwork when she was given the microphone. In fact, she actually tried to pass her individual award to others in the crowd around her. She wanted nothing to do with it; she wanted the championship trophy instead.
“Winning never gets old,” she said. “But when you do it with a group that generally cares about each other, you don’t care about any of that individual stuff … I think as a group we put it together.”
Taurasi is not one …read more

You can expect a knockdown, hard-fought battle in Phoenix tonight. The Mercury are back on their own home court, and ready to defend it to the fullest extent. But it’s clear that the Indiana Fever aren’t intimidated, not in the least.  You can feel the tension and anticipation in the air … this is what the WNBA Finals are made of. The level of intensity has been raised to “dangerously high.”
“I don’t expect anything else,” Phoenix’s Cappie Pondexter said, according to ESPN.com. Pondexter and teammate Diana Taurasi are ready to air it all out and leave everything on the floor.
“At …read more

The Indiana Fever certainly are. They are ready to put the 2009 WNBA Finals to bed and claim the championship trophy. Of course, the Phoenix Mercury might have something to say about that. They can tie it up with a win tonight and send the series to game five.
But in order to pull off a win against the Fever, both Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter are going to have to start off strong. Taurasi has not shot well throughout this entire championship series. And for some strange reason, Pondexter has suddenly grown reserved. In the first three games of the …read more

I know I’ve been posting a lot about Diana Taurasi lately, but she’s the hot topic in women’s basketball. On Tuesday, Taurasi was awarded the WNBA MVP during press conference before the first game of the WNBA Finals between the Phoenix Mercury and the Indiana Fever.
The award came as no surprise to players, coaches, fans and certainly, Taurasi herself. She is the league’s leading scorer and the best all-around talent. I’d go as far to say that she is the world’s best women’s basketball player.
According to ESPN.com, Taurasi received 27 first-place votes and 323 points overall in ballots cast by …read more

What’s up with the WNBA this year? Is there a curse on the veterans that I don’t know about?
Last week, WNBA All-Star Lauren Jackson found out she had a severe back injury that would keep her out for the rest of the season.
This week, gold medalist and WNBA All-Star Kara Lawson announced that she will miss the rest of the WNBA season with the Sacramento Monarchs due to tendinitis in her right quadriceps muscle. (Ouch.)
Lawson, a seven-year veteran, was recently chosen for the U.S. women’s national basketball team. She was one of eight players selected, which speaks to her ability …read more

Bad news for the Seattle Storm — Lauren Jackson, one of the WNBA’s premier players, is out for the season after suffering a stress fracture in her lower back.
“Lauren has been playing with back pain for a couple of weeks,” head coach Brian Agler said. “She will rest and work with our team physicians and trainers to rehabilitate her back.”
According to ESPN.com, Jackson had a bone scan done last Friday that revealed the stress fracture.
The Storm clinched a playoff spot after last Thursday’s win over the Connecticut Sun.  As the team’s leading scorer, Jackson will surely be missed in the …read more

I’m not one to toot my own horn or anything … but I will on occasion. When the 2009 WNBA season began, I said that the Atlanta Dream could have a break-out year. Well, guess what? The Dream took sole  possession of second place in the Eastern Conference this weekend when they defeated the Seattle Storm 88-79.
Most expansion teams take a few years to get themselves together. After last season’s laughable performance,  the Dream looked as though they were going to follow the expansion blueprint. Then something shifted.  Veteran players were traded and talented rookies joined the team. Now, the …read more

Even if the Los Angeles Sparks do not win an WNBA Championship this season,  Lisa Leslie should have no regrets about retiring. She’s already achieved a host of accolades and awards throughout her career, and is one of the most recognizable faces in women’s basketball.
Sure, Candace Parker is a household name, but Leslie was dunking basketballs well before Parker could even drive a car.
Leslie reached yet another milestone in her basketball career by reaching 6,000 points in a game against the Indiana Fever. The exclamation point of the achievement was made as Leslie hit an 11-foot jumper with only 11.9 …read more

After 11 seasons, one of the more prolific and influential players in WNBA history has decided to retire.
Yolanda Griffith announced her retirement Tuesday after suffering a career-ending tear of her left Achilles tendon back on June 9.
The 39-year-old Indiana Fever forward has quite the basketball resume. She is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, and won a WNBA Champtionship back  in 2005 with the Sacramento Monarchs.
Griffith also holds the second spot for rebounding in league history with 2,444 boards. As the second overall pick in the 1999 WNBA draft, she averaged seven rebounds and 10.3 ppg.
As the WNBA moves further into …read more

After a 6 – 11 start for the New York Liberty, head coach Pat Coyle was fired on Friday. Anne Donovan has taken over in the interim and hopes to help set the team on the right track.
“We’ve been a very up-and-down team,” Donovan said, according to ESPN.com. “Not just from game to game, but from quarter to quarter, minute to minute. We all know we have to be more consistent with that.”
After making a pretty good run in the playoffs last season, the Liberty are now 7½ games behind first-place Indiana and two behind Atlanta and Chicago for the …read more