Diana Taurasi leads team into WNBA finals, returns home for daughter’s birth

PHOENIX — Diana Taurasi helped the Phoenix Mercury reach the WNBA finals Friday night, but then had more pressing matters to -- the birth of her second child.

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Taurasi, 39, flew back to Phoenix from Las Vegas after helping the Mercury beat the Aces 87-84 and made it back to Arizona to see her wife, Penny Taylor, give birth to a girl, The Arizona Republic reported.

The couple’s second child -- their son, Leo Michael Taurasi-Taylor, was born in 2018, according to Greenwich Time.

Taurasi scored 14 of her 24 points in the fourth quarter, then had a message for her wife in a postgame interview.

“Hold it in, babe,” Taurasi said before exiting. She caught a plane to Phoenix, and the baby was born at 4:24 a.m. local time, the Time reported.

Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, led the Mercury into the best-of-five finals against the Chicago Sky, a rematch of the 2014 series won 3-0 by Phoenix. The Mercury host the Sky in Game 1 on Sunday afternoon.

Taurasi had a plane waiting for her and then took a car to the hospital to see the birth, The Associated Press.

Taurasi was a three-time NCAA champion at the University of Connecticut. She debuted in the WNBA in 2004 and has spent her entire career with the Mercury.

Taurasi married Taylor -- her former teammate and Phoenix’s current director of player development and performance -- in May 2017, according to the Time.

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