WNBA Finals: Bruises, Bravado, and the Bill Coming Due


By Craig T. Greenlee

Welcome to the WNBA Finals—otherwise known as the only basketball series where the pregame warm-ups might need referees. 

The league keeps bragging about being “the most physical in the sport,” and now it’s staring down at the ugly bill for that slogan. When your brand is basically “basketball with body slams,” don’t be shocked when stars limp off and your marquee event looks more like a hospital ward than a championship showcase.

Just about anything and everything goes

The league's love affair with brutish play isn't about passion or hustle. It’s about punishment. Clutch, grab, elbow, poke an eye, collide. The league markets it as toughness, but the product ends up looking more like survival than skill.

And so the 2025 Finals give us Phoenix Mercury vs. Las Vegas Aces, Exhibit A in the demolition-derby experiment. (Game 1 tips off Friday  night at 8, Eastern time zone). Vegas trots out four-time MVP A’ja Wilson, the league’s golden child and whistle magnet. 

Bully-ball at its finest

On the other side? Phoenix plays like the neighborhood bully. Led by Alyssa Thomas, the Mercury have turned roughhousing into an art form, with officials playing the role of seeing-eye dogs.

Thomas isn’t just physical—she’s a freight train in Nikes. Ask Napheesa Collier. In the semifinals (Mercury vs. Lynx), Thomas made a clean steal—then bulldozed Collier linebacker-style. Minnesota’s best player left the game with torn ligaments in her ankle along with a torn shin muscle.

Pitiful commentary

No foul. No problem. Just another day in the WNBA, where “no blood, no foul” isn’t just a saying, it’s a mission statement.

Wilson, of course, has her own advantage. Nicknamed “A’ja Whistle,” she seems to get the benefit of the doubt 95 percent of the time. 

So here’s your Finals subplot: Phoenix hacks, pounds, and mugs. Vegas leans on the most protected star in the league. And the refs? They’ll likely swallow whistles until the trophy’s handed out.

Wouldn't this raise a few eyebrows?

But here’s the real kicker: wouldn’t it be eye-opening if both Thomas and Wilson came down with serious injuries that severely limited their ability to play like stars? 

Karma is cruel, and nothing would expose the league’s “too tough for our own good” identity faster than seeing its two biggest headliners sidelined by the very style it celebrates.

Prediction? If the officials continue to vanish, Phoenix mollywhops Vegas in six. And it wouldn’t shock me if they finish the job in five. 

Emphasis on physical play may come back to haunt WNBA

The WNBA wanted physical. The Mercury have mastered trench warfare. And this year's Finals won’t be remembered for crowning a champion so much as proving a brutal point. When you sell violence disguised as basketball, don’t be surprised when the game punches back.

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