“Did I only shoot 11 triples?” joked Diana Taurasi after Game 2 between Phoenix Mercury and Las Vegas Aces for the semifinals of the WNBA. Truth is, Diana should have thrown several more, because her hand was exceptionally hot on the victory of his team 117-91 as a visitor to tie the series.
Phoenix shooting guard scored 37 points converting 8 of the 11 attempts he made from the perimeter: added the perfection of a 2-2 in doubles and a 9-9 in free throws to end up with a phenomenal performance, the best of the year so far and one of the best that has been seen in Diana’s career, which for many is the great candidate to be chosen as the best player in the history of the WNBA in a vote carried out by the league and the results of which will be known in a few days.
“I only shot 11 ?!”
Watch @dianataurasi in a VERY Diana Taurasi way talk about her stellar performance 😂 pic.twitter.com/7IYUNt9JbQ
– WNBA (@WNBA) October 1, 2021
“I had my options and, like I said, sometimes you just have to go to the basics. They have a big body team, with Liz (Cambage), Kiah Stokes and A’ja (Wilson), they are tough so you have to shoot a little more from the dribble and the shots went in “Taurasi said from his humble side at the end of the match. The truth is that his performance was incredible and then we present some data to help have a context of how he made history. Ah, all this while dealing with a discomfort in the left ankle.
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Diana did not set her personal league scoring record, which remain the 47 that made him the Houston Comets in 2006 at 8-16 on 3s, and was a little further away from the WNBA all-time record of the 53 points from Liz Cambage to New York Liberty in 2018. But Taurasi did register his new personal playoff scoring record with these 37 goals, surpassing the 34 he had made for the Los Angeles Sparks in 2014, and he made the top 10 best scoring records in a postseason game.
The first place in that ranking is Angel McCoughtry since 2010, with 42 points in this same instance prior to the Finals. It is followed by Tamika Whitmore with 41 points in a 2006 game, Maya Moore with 40 points in a 2015 game and Elena Delle Donne also with 40 points in that same 2015 postseason. Fifth place is from a 39-point performance by McCoughtry. in the 2014 conference semifinals and the same player ranks sixth. The seventh is shared by McCoughtry herself, by Breanna Stewart and by what Taurasi did against Las Vegas.
What there was much less precedent in the league is a player signing a game with 8 3-pointers and at least 75% accuracy from the perimeter. Shekinna Stricklen was just 8-11 on triples on July 22, 2018 in a Connecticut Sun win over Dallas Wings in which he scored 24 points, adding only from the outside. In the Playoffs, nobody did it before Taurasi.
The NBA has a much bigger history than that of the WNBA, which only began to compete in 1997, but even so you cannot find as many cases of a player making at least 8 3-pointers in a postseason game and at the same time having a hit of at least 70% in those types of launches. There are only 17 records, generated by 15 different players (Ray Allen and Chris Paul did it twice.) Four of them occurred in the last two years: Fred VanVleet (8-10) and Jamal Murray (9-12) in 2020 and Damian Lillard (12-17) and Devin Booker (8-10) in 2021.
What even the NBA didn’t have was a player at least 39, Taurasi’s current age, scoring at least 35 points in a postseason game.. The closest to that is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 36 points in the 1985 Finals, with 38 just turned 38. Over 36 there were only five performances: that of Kareem, another of him with 36 years scoring 37 points, two games of Chris Paul in the last Playoffs with 36 years and a 50-point meeting of Karl Malone with the same age.
.@DianaTaurasi was NOT playin ‘around tonight 🥶
She dropped 37 points and hit EIGHT 3-pointers in @PhoenixMercury‘s win 🎯 #CountIt pic.twitter.com/zaErYvND9c
– WNBA (@WNBA) October 1, 2021
In the WNBA Cynthia Cooper recorded performances of 42 and 36 points at age 36 in 1999, but at 39 years the most before Taurasi (who had already scored 25 points in June) were Sheryl Swoopes and Cooper’s 22-point matches in 2011 and 2003 respectively. The oldest player with a game of at least 35 points in the W Playoffs had been Becky Hammon in 2008, with ¡31!
Taurasi, the player with the most Playoff games of at least 30 points in all of WNBA history (He has eight meetings like this, two more than his escort, Angel McCoughtry) also has total dominance in a private record. To score 37 points against the Aces I only need 27 minutes on the track: went to rest before reaching the middle of the fourth quarter. This is how he got the third game of his career in the league with at least 35 points playing less than 30 minutes. The most shocking thing is that there are only seven such records in all of history, counting Regular Phase and Playoffs, and almost half are hers. The rest – Danielle Adams, Jewell Loyd, Angel McCoughtry and Lauren Jackson – didn’t get more than one and no one had done it in the postseason.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the NBA or its organizations.