"Winning never gets old": Phoenix Celebrates the 2009 WNBA Championship

by Q McCall on Oct 9, 2009 11:50 PM EDT in WNBA Comment 8 comments

But it's better when you do it with a group that cares about each other...

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All photos by Max Simbron.

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More images from Max Simbron can be found here.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 10/09/09 10:16 PM MST ]

To quote Phoenix Mercury Head Coach Corey Gaines, "I've never been so emotionally tired in my life. The up's and down's of this series was tough."

That might be a tiny exaggeration for me and in fact as great as this series was I am kind of emotionally flat right now and I really am finding myself at a loss to say anything interesting about this game.

By now you know what happened.

You know the Fever jumped out to an early lead only to see the Mercury storm back in the second quarter on 77% shooting. Then came the second half where things got really interesting with the Fever closing a 9 point lead to tie the game at 80 with 4:42 to go only to see Tangela Smith hit two huge three's (her only 6 points of the game) to give the Mercury an advantage they would carry through to victory.

That might be what happened in this game but the story of the Mercury's championship is much longer. One of the (many) advantages working for an outfit like this is no deadlines. I am going to sleep on this game and let everything that we witnessed in this great series soak in before trying to add anything more to what we've seen.

In the mean time, here's the post game press conference audio:

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What a game.

I am beat, but to see them win it is totally worth it all.

I’m just glad the crowd didn’t storm the court.

by Max Simbron on Oct 9, 2009 11:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

barely

The 2009 Merc are the first WNBA championship team to be forced to a deciding game in all three rounds of the playoffs. The Comets in 1997 and 1999 also had to go to a deciding game in every round, but each had only two rounds of playoffs (and in 1997 the “series” were only one game).

by pilight on Oct 10, 2009 12:01 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Taurasi

in the post game said the Fever were the best team she’s played against….they were fantastic

Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan

by Seth Pollack on Oct 10, 2009 12:22 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Indiana was amazing.

I honestly didn’t know what would happen when they came back to tie it. Just wasn’t sure we had enough left in the tank, even being the deeper team.

by Max Simbron on Oct 10, 2009 12:27 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

They still get the same trophy, right?

by kpelton on Oct 10, 2009 1:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh ya it was definitely close

but that’s what made the series great. Down 2-1 is a hard road. I’m glad it all turned out this way, because games 1 and 5 were insane.

by Max Simbron on Oct 10, 2009 12:10 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

YES. YES. YES!

I love my team. So much.

by fadeoutin on Oct 10, 2009 1:54 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

AMAZING!

Such a fantastic game…I’m so glad I was able to experience it person.

GO MERCURY!

Steve Nash, the league's MVP, is a longhaired Canadian who spoke out against the war in Iraq and reads The Communist Manifesto. Quentin Richardson declared after a game-winning shot that it "was like Hamlet. It was a suspense thriller, and I killed them at the end." Amare Stoudemire, when asked to comment on a 22-point third quarter against the Kings, said, "I've got a tendency to jump over some guys' heads and throw it down."

by rsavaj on Oct 10, 2009 2:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs