Griner honored in Phoenix return as Dream win

PHOENIX -- Brittney Griner had 17 points and 8 rebounds against her erstwhile team, starring the Atlanta Dream past the Phoenix Mercury 90-79 connected Wednesday night.

Griner made her instrumentality to Phoenix, wherever she played 11 seasons with the Mercury, helping pb them to the 2014 WNBA rubric and an quality successful the 2021 finals. The Mercury honored Griner with a tribute video earlier the game, with longtime teammate Diana Taurasi sitting courtside.

Allisha Gray scored a game-high 28 points, including a layup that gave the Dream an 84-71 pb with 3:03 left. Sami Whitcomb made 3-pointers connected back-to-back possessions to get Phoenix wrong 7 points, but Griner answered with a handbasket successful the lane to widen Atlanta's pb to 86-77.

Jordin Canada added 14 points and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored 11 for Atlanta (14-10), which won for the 2nd clip successful 5 games. Rhyne Howard, Atlanta's second-leading scorer astatine 16.5 points per game, did not play. Gray made 10 of 16 shots for her 10th 20-point crippled this.

Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper returned to the starting lineup for Phoenix (15-8) aft being retired since July 3 owed to injuries.

Sabally finished with 13 points, Copper added 10 and DeWanna Bonner scored 18. Alyssa Thomas had 7 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists.

Gray scored 13 points successful the archetypal fractional to assistance Atlanta instrumentality a 39-34 lead. Phoenix changeable conscionable 29.7% from the field, including 3 of 15 from 3-point range, but stayed adjacent by making each 9 of its free-throw attempts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.