1998 WNBA Finals

Result

Finals MVP: Cynthia Cooper

The Finals moved to a best-of-three format for 1998, as the league expanded to ten teams. Houston dropped Game 1 before winning Games 2 (in overtime) and 3.

Games

Finals context

With the WNBA doubling from eight to ten franchises for its second season, the Finals moved to a best-of-three format, and the expansion Phoenix Mercury, seeded third, gave the defending-champion Comets a scare few expected. Game 1 in Phoenix on August 27 went to the Mercury, 54-51, on a clutch basket from Jennifer Gillom with 8.9 seconds left; Gillom finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds despite shooting just 5-of-20, while Cynthia Cooper's 29 points for Houston went mostly unsupported by her teammates. The loss handed Houston just its fourth defeat of the entire season and put the Comets in the unfamiliar position of facing elimination in Game 2. Houston responded at home, trailing 62-50 with 7:24 left before storming back to force overtime and win 74-69; Cooper scored 19 of her 27 points in the second half, and Sheryl Swoopes added 14 points and 13 rebounds. Michele Timms starred for Phoenix with 21 points before fouling out late in a game the Mercury nearly stole. Houston then closed out the title in Game 3, 80-71, as Cooper's 23 points, Tina Thompson's 18, and a 16-point, largely fourth-quarter surge from Swoopes overcame 24 points from Michelle Griffiths and 20 from Gillom; Timms, so effective in Game 2, was held to just 2 points. Cooper again won Finals MVP, becoming the first repeat winner of the award and cementing her status as the league's signature player through its formative seasons. For Houston, the series was proof that the inaugural title had not been a fluke tied to a favorable single-elimination format; surviving a true series, including a road loss to open it, against a first-year expansion roster demonstrated the Comets' depth and poise under pressure. Phoenix's run, meanwhile, was a genuine surprise: an expansion team reaching the Finals in its debut season and pushing the two-time champions to three games was almost unheard of in professional sports, and it gave the young Mercury franchise an early identity as a scrappy, well-coached group under Cheryl Miller. The series also mattered for the league's broader competitive picture. With the American Basketball League still operating as a rival through the 1998-99 season (it would fold partway through that winter), the WNBA needed visible parity and drama to keep building its audience, and a competitive, three-game Finals with an overtime classic in Game 2 delivered exactly that, even as Houston's dynasty kept rolling. Houston's 27-3 regular-season mark had given the Comets home-court advantage for the decisive games, and it proved just enough of a cushion; had the series shifted differently, Phoenix's grittier, defense-first roster had shown it was capable of an outright upset. Instead, Houston moved to 2-0 in Finals appearances, with Cooper's sustained brilliance the one constant across both championships.

Sources

• Wikipedia — 1998 WNBA Championship
• Wikipedia — WNBA Finals