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M.A. Voepel
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Alexa Philippou
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ESPN- Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA
- Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer
The 2022 WNBA semifinals are set after chalk dominated the opening round of the playoffs: The No. 1 seed Las Vegas Aces will take on the No. 4 seed Seattle Storm, and the No. 2 seed Chicago Sky will face off against the No. 3 seed Connecticut Sun.
The Aces-Storm matchup — Game 1 is Sunday (4 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Las Vegas — has already been hyped as a Finals-worthy showdown. (In fact, Las Vegas and Seattle squared off for the title in the bubble in 2020 on the Storm’s way to winning their fourth championship.) For the first time in WNBA or NBA history, seven No. 1 draft picks will take the court in a playoff game: the Aces’ Kelsey Plum, A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young along with the Storm’s Sue Bird, Tina Charles, Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart. Wilson and Stewart, MVPs in 2020 and 2018, respectively, are considered front-runners for this season’s award as well.
The Sky-Sun series, which features 2008 No. 1 draft pick Candace Parker, marks a rematch of the 2021 semifinals, where, after going .500 in the regular season, then-No. 6 seed Chicago stunned top-seeded Connecticut in four games on the way to the Sky’s first title. They got even deeper in the offseason, particularly with the signing of Emma Meesseman, allowing them to start three Finals MVPs (including Parker and Kahleah Copper) this summer.
And while the Sun have earned their fourth straight trip to the semis, this is the first time they did it behind their Big Three of Jonquel Jones, DeWanna Bonner and (a fully healthy) Alyssa…
Source : espn
