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DeWanna Bonner steps up to help Mercury return to WNBA Finals for sixth time & third with Bonner

Video by Eliav Gabay

When the Phoenix Mercury needed her the most Sunday, DeWanna Bonner found a way to deliver and for the third time in her career to help propel the Mercury into the 2025 WNBA Finals.

Bonner scored 11 of her 13 points in the fourth quarter at PHX Arena as the Mercury rallied from 13 behind to win 86-81 over the Minnesota Lynx, closing out their best-of-5 semifinal series 3-1. 

Like in 2009, when Bonner was a rookie, and in 2014, on the greatest of all Mercury teams, the 6-4 forward again will play for a championship with the team that drafted her fifth overall coming out of Auburn.

The No. 4-seeded Mercury will play in the historic first best-of-seven WNBA Finals starting Friday against the Game 5 semifinal winner Tuesday between No. 6 Indiana and No. 2 Las Vegas.

Bonner began the season with Indiana, playing in nine games before a contract buyout. She then signed as a free agent with Mercury, joining her fiancé and former Connecticut teammate Alyssa Thomas, in her first season in Phoenix.

Thomas almost had a triple-double Sunday with 23 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists and scored 10 in the fourth. But it took 37-year-old Bonner going 3-of-3 from 3-point in the fourth to put away the No. 1 seed Lynx, playing without their injured leader Napheesa Collier and suspended coach Cheryl Reeve.

 

“I haven’t been shooting well throughout the playoffs and my teammates just kept telling me forget the other games,” Bonner said. “I’m just happy those balls went in at that moment because I could not go back to Minnesota,” for a Game 5 on Tuesday.

Bonner was 1-of-4 for two points through three quarters. Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts did not alter his strategy of using her and guard Sami Whitcomb in the fourth, his faith rewarded with a payoff from both veterans for their full 10 minutes playing time in that quarter.

Whitcomb had all six of her points in the Mercury’s 31-point fourth. Bonner had a 3-pointer early in the fourth, another at 3:39 to give Phoenix a lead it never relinquished and a third at 2:02. She also made two free throws in the final minute, part of a 6-0 run that sealed the Mercury’s first Finals appearance since 2021. 

“I’m sure there were people wondering why I was playing DB at times in this series,” Tibbetts said. “We went and got her for this reason. I told her after the game, the first three games weren’t a big enough moment for her. She needed the fourth quarter to step up. 

“She hit some big 3’s. That’s why you go get a player like that. I’ve got the ultimate trust in her. She’s been through every experience. I’m super happy for her to do this in front of this crowd (16,919, even larger than Game 3).”

 

The Mercury also rallied from 20 down in the third quarter to win Game 2 at Minnesota and finished the series with a third straight win over the Lynx for the first time since 2010. They beat No. 5 seed New York, WNBA defending champion, in the first round and now have eliminated both 2024 finalists.

The Mercury also beat Minnesota in the 2014 semifinals on the way to their third WNBA title. Even so, they are just 5-14 all-time vs. the Lynx in the playoffs and wanted nothing to do with a risky road Game 5 even with Collier, WNBA MVP runner-up, likely out again due to an ankle injury suffered late in Game 3.

“The carrot was to win today and get some rest,” said Tibbetts, who felt his team was pressing early — falling behind 12-1 and 21-7 — because “we wanted it so bad.”

Bonner had 14 points in the 2014 semifinal clincher over the Lynx when Diana Taurasi scored 31 and Brittney Griner 22. In 2009, when the Mercury beat Los Angeles to reach the Finals, Bonner scored eight in 12 minutes off the bench (Taurasi led with 21).

 

The Mercury first went to the Finals in 1998, in the WNBA’s second season, with Bridget Pettis leading the way in a semifinal clincher at the Cleveland Rockers with a 27-point, 11-rebound double-double. 

In a 2007 two-game semifinal sweep over San Antonio, the Mercury’s Cappie Pondexter had a near triple-double (33 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists) in Game 2.

In the 2021 semifinal thriller vs. Las Vegas, Griner led the way in Game 5 with 28 points and nine rebounds with Taurasi adding 24 before rushing off to make it back to Phoenix for the birth of her second child.

Bonner is the link between the Taurasi-Griner era and the first season since 2013 without that duo in her 16th and possibly final season.

“The love I needed at the time (after leaving Indiana) I knew I would get here,” Bonner said.

 

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