Phantom BC tops Vinyl to reach Unrivaled final in front of sellout crowd at Barclays Center

By Canadian Press on March 2, 2026.

NEW YORK (AP) — Kelsey Plum scored 31 points to lead short-handed Phantom BC to the Unrivaled championship game as the top seed beat Vinyl 83-75 in the semifinals of the 3-on-3 league at Barclays Center on Monday night.

Phantom will play the winner of second-seeded Mist and No. 5 Breeze on Wednesday night at Unrivaled’s home arena in Miami. The winning team will take home a prize pool of $600,000 that will be split among the players from the championship club.

Phantom was missing star forward Aliyah Boston, who is out for the playoffs with a right leg injury.

After the success of taking the league to Philadelphia in late January for a weekend, Unrivaled decided to move the semifinals to New York a few weeks ago. Playing at Barclays Center was a homecoming for Unrivaled co-founder Breanna Stewart, who led the New York Liberty to its first championship in 2024.

The star-studded sellout crowd of 18,261 that filled Barclays Center included basketball greats Carmelo Anthony and Sue Bird; actors Ashton Kutcher and Jason Sudeikis, and gold medal-winning U.S. hockey player Hilary Knight.

The crowd gave a loud ovation to Liberty guard Natasha Cloud, who walked down to the court through the fans as she was introduced.

She gave them a lot to cheer about as she rallied Phantom in the third quarter from a 59-50 deficit. Cloud drew an offensive foul on one end and then had a three-point play on the other. Her team was up 71-64 heading into the final quarter. The league uses a format where the first team to 82 points is the winner.

Vinyl got within 78-75 before Phantom scored the final five points, including the game-winner by Plum on a fadeaway 3-pointer.

Vinyl was looking to get back to the championship game. The team lost to Rose BC for last year’s title. Dearica Hamby led the way for them with 30 points.

MVP

Chelsea Gray of Rose BC won the league’s MVP on Monday. The guard, who won Unrivaled’s 1-on-1 tournament last month, averaged 24.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.1 assists. Gray broke her own league single-season assists record with 85 in 14 games. She had nine games with 20 or more points and 10 contests with five or more assists. She also tied the league single-game 3-pointers record with 10 on Feb. 22.

Gray accepted the trophy before the start of the first game.

“I want to say thank you to everyone who voted. I love this game. Want to be great every night and that’s always my goal,” Gray said. “Women’s basketball is where it’s at, shows by all you guys coming out and watching us compete every single night.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Doug Feinberg, The Associated Press