Congratulations to Diana for a great week, which happened to coincide with both her birthday and the team's recent turnaround. After a slow and a kind of scary start to the season filled with turnovers and poor shooting, DT has bounced back in style.
In an ironic twist, her former teammate Cappie Pondexter (NY Liberty) won Eastern Conference Player of the Week.
From the official release:
For Taurasi, the Player of the Week presented by Kia Motors award is the eleventh of her career, fourth most in WNBA history behind only Lauren Jackson (16), Lisa Leslie (15) and Tamika Catchings (12).
Taurasi averaged 23.3 points on the back end of a stretch of 6 games in 12 days for Phoenix and led the Mercury to two wins in three games. That effort (second in the league only to Pondexter's 25.3) helped Phoenix improve to 5-5 on the season and remain in second place in the Western Conference. Along the way, Taurasi also ranked in the top 10 in the conference in assists (4.0, tied for sixth) and rebounds (5.7, ninth). She also averaged one block per contest.
On June 10 the sixth year pro led Phoenix past Minnesota, recording her 26th 30-point performance - tops in WNBA history - on 10-of-18 (.555) shooting. The 31-point night marked the time this season she tallied 30-or-more points. Two days later the league's leading scorer recorded 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting in just 19 minutes of action during a rout of Tulsa in which the Mercury set a WNBA regular season record in scoring with 116 points.
On June 8 Taurasi poured in 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds in a one point loss to Los Angeles, the third game between the two clubs this season decided by a point.
The University of Connecticut product emerged from the week with the WNBA's longest active streak in terms of reaching double figures in scoring (31 consecutive games).