PHOENIX — Alyssa Thomas scored 23 points, DeWanna Bonner made two late 3-pointers and the Phoenix Mercury overcame a 13-point, fourth-quarter deficit to beat the short-handed Minnesota Lynx 86-81 in Game 4 on Sunday to advance to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2021.Phoenix will face the Indiana-Las Vegas winner. Indiana forced a Game 5 earlier Sunday with a 90-83 home victory.“We knew they were going to challenge us today and I’m just proud of how we responded,” Thomas said. “We could have easily given up and be headed to Minnesota right now. But we stuck together and dug deep on defense.”The Mercury won the final three games of the best-of-five semifinal series. The top-seeded Lynx were playing without Cheryl Reeve, who was suspended for Game 4 because of her behavior and comments toward officials in Game 3. Minnesota also was without All-Star guard Napheesa Collier, who suffered an ankle injury near the end of the Game 3 loss.Down 68-55 after three quarters, Phoenix pulled to 70-69 on Sami Whitcomb’s 3-pointer with 4:46 left. Bonner’s 3-pointer pushed them ahead 72-70 and she hit another 3 with 2:03 left for a 77-73 lead.Minnesota’s Kayla McBride hit a 3-pointer — her sixth of the second half — to cut it to 77-76 with 1:04 left. The 38-year-old Bonner then made a pair of free throws to push the Mercury ahead 79-76.Bonner scored 11 points in the fourth — part of the Mercury’s 31-point outburst in the final quarter. “We didn’t have much of a choice,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbets said. “We were down 13, needed to get stops. And when we get stops, we’re pretty good offensively because we’re playing free and we don’t have time to overthink it.“We made some great plays, some really good passes. That’s what it took.”Phoenix’s Satou Sabally scored 21 p …
