The Phoenix Mercury, who went 29-5 in the 2014 WNBA regular season, took on the Chicago Sky, a team that went 15-19, for the WNBA Finals. The Mercury took home its third WNBA title after sweeping the best-of-five series against the Sky.
The extreme disparity between the two teams’ records was a big part of what got the Mercury to have the best WNBA odds. The Mercury were listed at -200 to win the title while the Sky was at +160. In addition, the Mercury was the 2/1 favorite to win it all at the halfway point of the season when they were 18-3 while the Sky were at 14/1 in spite of a 8-14 record. The Sky even had to win a tiebreaker against the New York Liberty just to qualify to get into the playoffs.
The Sky was able to crawl out of their hole and beat the Indiana Fever in their conference championship. However, the Mercury simply took control of the Sky throughout the series.
The first game in Phoenix ended with the Mercury winning 83-62. The Mercury took a 42-20 lead at the half and never looked back. The Mercury went 58.5% on its shots while the Sky was only 31.9% from the field. Candic Dupree also had 26 points for the Mercury.
The Mercury had an even larger margin of victory in the second game as they took out the Sky 97-68. All ten of the Mercury’s starters were in double digits with Brittney Griner getting 19 points and Diana Taurasi having 18.
The series went to the Chicago suburb of Rosemont for the third and final game. The Sky was up 63-61 after three quarters but the Mercury would outscore them 26-19 in the last quarter to take an 87-82 win and then the title. While the Sky’s Elena Delle Donne had 23 points, Dupree and Taurasi both had 24 for the Mercury while the team completed all fourteen of its free throws. Diana Taurasi was also named the MVP of the finals.