4 hours ago
1
Kendra AndrewsSep 26, 2025, 08:30 AM ET
Phoenix Mercury star Alyssa Thomas lowered her right shoulder and banged into Napheesa Collier to back the Minnesota Lynx forward down closer to the hoop. One attempt wasn't quite enough for Thomas to get where she wanted to go, so she did it again.
Collier grabbed one of Thomas' arms to prevent her from getting a shot up, and as the two got tangled, they stood chest to chest. Thomas -- regarded as one of the best trash talkers in the WNBA -- gave Collier an earful.
"She's the ultimate competitor. I don't know if I've ever been around anyone quite like her in my whole life," Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said after his team rallied to win Game 2 and even the WNBA semifinal series 1-1 against the Lynx on Tuesday. "I've been around a lot of players, and I've never seen anyone want to win as badly as she does."
Thomas' grit has been part of her identity since she was a kid playing games such as Trouble and Candy Land with her parents. Thinking three steps ahead was a must. Trash talk was encouraged. Losing was not an option.
"We had to earn our wins," Thomas told ESPN. "For me, when I got a win against [my parents], it was everything."
Now, Thomas' unrelenting will to win manifests as a sinister grin on the court, a sarcastic pout when she gets called for a technical, or as a fist pump when there is something to celebrate.
In her 12th season in the league, Thomas' determination to be the best is as strong as ever. A new level of her game has been unlocked as a full-time facilitator for the first time in her WNBA career, thriving in Tibbetts' free-flowing offense that doesn't rely on set playcalls. She has been a perennial MVP candidate for most of her career, but now as she reaches even greater heights in her performance, she is looking to add a title to her résumé.
"This is what it's all about," Thomas said. "We play the whole season for playoffs and moments like this. I want to win. I've been chasing a championship for a long time, and I think this is our time."
Tibbets had spent the past season, his first as a WNBA head coach, scouting for Thomas when his team played the Connecticut Sun. While she consistently played well against the Mercury -- she and the Sun swept the regular-season series 4-0 -- Tibbetts hadn't taken a deep dive on Thomas' playing prowess until a four-team trade sent her and Satou Sabally to Phoenix.
"If I were being honest, I probably didn't know that she was this good," Tibbetts said. "I should have realized the greatness of her because they just kicked our butt every time we played them."
Thomas wasn't quite familiar with Tibbetts' game, either. He spent most of his professional career coaching in the NBA. But during an offseason meeting, she quickly learned he was bringing the same style to Phoenix that he implemented as an NBA assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic.
"There are just different wrinkles and plays that you may have never thought of," Thomas told ESPN. "I watch so much of the NBA game, and now to understand what I'm watching, or know the words they are using, is exciting for me."
An Olympic gold medalist who has had success at every level -- she led the ACC in scoring in three of her four seasons at Maryland -- while playing all over the world, Thomas doesn't have many untapped areas of her game remaining. But the partnership with Tibbetts and the Mercury has given her a chance to lean fully into her strengths as an elite distributor.
Thomas became the first player in WNBA history to record eight triple-doubles in a single season -- breaking her own record. She wasn't far from averaging a triple-double with 15.4 points, 8.8 rebounds and 9.2 assists during the regular season. She tied Chicago's Angel Reese with a league-leading 23 double-doubles and reclaimed the single-season record for assists (356) from Caitlin Clark (337 in 2024). All of this led to a third-place finish in MVP voting, behind Las Vegas' A'ja Wilson -- who became the league's first four-time MVP -- and Minnesota's Collier.
"Everyone keeps saying she's taken her game to a new level, but she's been playing this way," DeWanna Bonner, Thomas' teammate and partner, told ESPN. "I just think the recognition has been different."
Bonner also played with Thomas in Connecticut from 2020 to 2024, including when former Sun and current Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White put Thomas in a point forward position in 2023. The roster was loaded with talent, but didn't have the right players for the offense to run through Thomas on a nightly basis. But it was obvious she could pose a threat as a go-to facilitator.
"It's all in line with the modernization of our game," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. "When things run through AT, your offense is better."
With so many shooters around her in Phoenix (Sami Whitcomb and Kathryn Westbeld), cutters such as Kahleah Copper -- who has been looking for a facilitating big since she played with Candace Parker -- and the versatility of Sabally, everything has clicked for Thomas and the Mercury. Through five games of their postseason run, she has assisted on nearly 30% of their points (107 of 389) with 46 assists.
"This year it's been totally different with her being at the top so much, the way she finds us with the ball and initiates the offense," Bonner said. "[And] the most impressive thing is her mind. It's on a whole different level than other players."
Tibbetts lit in to his team at halftime of Game 2 against Minnesota. The Mercury were being bullied -- outhustled, outplayed, outmatched -- and trailed by 16 as the Lynx threatened to move a game away from a sweep to punch their ticket to the WNBA Finals.
The task in front of the Mercury was one few teams have done before: mount a massive comeback on the road in the postseason. But Tibbetts knew they still had something to give. So did the players. It wouldn't be the first time they had to fight back in these playoffs. They did it in the first round, when they knocked off the reigning champion New York Liberty -- featuring a Game 2 that saw Phoenix win by 26 in New York and then took Game 3 in overtime.
"Pride and toughness. Grit," Tibbetts said about what his team displayed.
It is those characteristics that Thomas shares with this group that makes her believe this is the team she could finally win her first WNBA title with.
"Most groups would have given up in a situation like this," Thomas said. "We are a team that has been through a lot this year. We don't give up on each other. We just pour into each other. There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to come back in this game [on Tuesday]. It's about believing that as a team."
Thomas was ready for something new when she left Connecticut as a free agent. All she wanted was to be on a team where her focus was just basketball. She also sought better facilities and resources. She had gotten close to a championship -- she has two Finals appearances under her belt, getting within one win of a title in 2019 -- and she wanted to contend again.
Phoenix represented an opportunity. The franchise had captured three titles but hadn't won one since 2014. Before this season, the Mercury hadn't made it out of the first round since 2021. This year, as they entered a new era -- one without Diana Tuarasi and Brittney Griner -- they made as many offseason moves as they could to build a team that could contend.
That included acquiring Thomas.
Phoenix has navigated injuries all season, but Thomas always had faith in what could happen when the team reached full strength -- a big three of herself, Sabally and Copper, young but tested depth and the midseason addition of Bonner to give the Mercury veteran leadership off the bench.
She looks to their comeback in Game 2 as evidence.
"Not many teams can do what we did," Thomas said. "We flipped a game on its head, and that speaks to the season we've had and how we've been preparing for this moment."
