A’ja Wilson and Las Vegas chase a third WNBA title in four years as they face Phoenix in Finals

A ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces are looking to accomplish something only done once before by winning a third WNBA championship in four seasons Standing in the way are the Phoenix Mercury who are making their first championship appearance since The WNBA Finals will begin Friday in Las Vegas between the second-seed Aces and No seed Mercury This year for the first time the two teams will play in a best-of-seven format as the league expanded its championship round from a five-game series The Aces were pushed to the brink in both the opening round of the playoffs and in the semifinals where they beat Indiana in overtime in a decisive Challenge on Tuesday night People counted us out but we re making it to the finals Wilson stated We re not done yet In the beginning of August the Aces looked down and out as they sat at and were coming off a record home loss to Minnesota The gang responded winning its final regular season games to improbably clinch the No seed They are back in the championship round after losing to New York in the semifinals last season Las Vegas won back-to-back titles in and Only Houston has won three titles in a four year stretch when the Comets won the first four championships in league history Phoenix is trying for its first championship since The Mercury had a tough road to get back to the Finals for the first time in four years They topped both the defending champion New York Liberty in the opening round and the No seed Minnesota Lynx in the semifinals to reach the WNBA Finals The Mercury have felt they have been the underdog all season It s no surprise with the retirement of Diana Taurasi and the departure of Brittney Griner as a free agent The Mercury rebuilt a talented roster briskly with the additions of Alyssa Thomas Satou Sabally and DeWanna Bonner Kahleah Copper one of the franchises two returning players from last season missed the first games while recovering from arthroscopic left knee surgery No one has had expectations for us except ourselves Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts explained The pride and the togetherness for such a new group it s pretty impressive Bonner was a late addition to the unit joining as a free agent midway through the year She s no stranger to Phoenix though helping the Mercury win titles in and After struggling for the majority of the playoffs she had a huge fourth quarter in the Challenge win over Minnesota that advanced the Mercury to the Finals I m sure that there were people wondering why I was playing DB at times in this series Tibbetts declared after the event We went and got her for this reason I narrated her after the event the first games weren t a big enough moment for her She needed the fourth quarter to step up And I mean she hit various big s And you know her experience that s why you go get a athlete like that The Aces won three of the four meetings between the teams during the regular season A trio of the matchups were decided by six points or less AP WNBA https apnews com hub wnba-basketball Source