NEW YORK — As the clock dwindled to zero in Tuesday night’s first-round matchup against the New York Liberty, Minnesota Lynx standouts Napheesa Collier, Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams found each other on the Barclays Center court and shared a collective embrace, cementing yet another heartbreaking Lynx playoff exit for the third straight year.
Minnesota became the first No. 1 seed in WNBA playoff history to be swept in its opening series, losing 87-71 in a must-win Game 2 to New York. With the Liberty also comfortably winning Game 1, the games marked the first time in franchise history that the Lynx lost consecutive playoff contests by 15 or more points.
“We became a great regular-season team this year,” coach Cheryl Reeve said, “and we ran into the wrong team.”
Minnesota looked the part of title contenders for much of the season, improving to 31-7 in late August behind the stellar play of Olivia Miles, the unanimous Rookie of the Year, and Reeve’s latest coaching masterclass, which earned her Coach of the Year honors for the fifth time.
But after a rocky past few weeks in which they almost fell to the No. 2 seed, the Lynx were for the second straight year unable to reach the WNBA Finals despite being the best team in the league during the regular season.
“I thought the playoffs would be hard for our team, regardless of who we were playing in the first round,” Reeve said. “We probably needed a little better matchup to do some of the things that we did all season long, but that’s not how it works.”
Earlier this season, Reeve became the winningest coach in WNBA history and was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She has led the Lynx franchise to four championships — in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 — and nearly a fifth in 2024, when the team came one controversial foul call away from beating the Liberty in a championship-deciding Game 5 in Brooklyn.
But Reeve acknowledged Tuesday that while championships are in Minnesota’s DNA, she hasn’t viewed the past few years with a championship-or-bust mentality, particularly given those teams have arguably overachieved.
“There are sometimes when you have that team and that would be the case, you should feel that way,” Reeve said. “I have not felt like we’ve had that team over these three years, and so what we’re doing is sort of maybe exceeding expectations in the regular season, and then when it comes playoffs, maybe we don’t quite have the right group to be effective.
“I just know we have some work to do. I have to help us. I have to get us the appropriate help to do it, make the hard decisions to do that. I couldn’t get us there in this series, and so it’s on me. I have to help them win in the playoffs … both as an executive [president of basketball operations] and as the coach, and I’ll find a way to do that.”
Asked why it has been difficult to translate regular-season success to winning championships, Collier — the Lynx’s perennial MVP candidate who returned midseason after offseason ankle surgeries — said she wasn’t sure what to attribute that to.
“I don’t know. I feel like if we knew the answer to that, we would be translating it over,” Collier said. “That’s something that obviously we have to figure out.”
Granted, the Lynx’s matchup against New York was an unfavorable one: The Liberty are known for their length at nearly every position, even bringing 6-foot-11 Han Xu off the bench, and their prowess at defending the rim. Reeve pointed to New York’s ability to “render ineffective” both Miles, who typically thrives around the basket, and All-Star forward Natasha Howard as Minnesota’s undoing.
“I think their size really bothered us,” Miles said. “We didn’t really know what coverage worked best. We were switching, we were hedging, we were playing drop, trying to throw a lot of things at them. Their size really is imposing.”
New York also wasn’t a traditional No. 8 seed — seven games separated Minnesota and New York in the standings and only two separated the No. 5 and No. 8 seeds. The Liberty’s big three of Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu scored or assisted on 70 points for New York, whereas the Lynx had 71 as a team.
Meanwhile, Collier didn’t look like her assertive, dominant self this series. On Tuesday, she got into foul trouble in the third quarter, making a late rally more difficult. And Miles, who so often played beyond her years this summer, looked like a rookie playing in her first postseason games.
“Their big three were really, really good,” Reeve said, “and we kind of struggled to have a big three. That’s just not a great place to be.”
Said Miles: “You could tell for a lot of us that we’re playing tight and stressed and afraid of losing instead of trying to win. Maybe from my end, that’s a lack of experience. But I think we wanted to win so bad that we almost cared too much, honestly, and cared in the wrong ways, and it really limited us.”
Miles finished the series with totals of 16 points, two assists, five turnovers and seven fouls. It was what Reeve said can be a learning experience for her but one that doesn’t erase her body of work this season.
“Everyone wants to win all the time. That’s just not how it works,” Miles said. “Sometimes I have to have experiences like this that hurt this bad to get me to where I want to be.”
Minnesota faces a fascinating offseason ahead with Williams, McBride and Howard all under contract through 2027, plus Miles still on her rookie deal. Collier, meanwhile, will hit free agency and cannot be cored by the team. She has been noncommittal when asked about her desire to stay with Minnesota beyond this year.
Time will tell whether that moment with Collier, McBride and Williams embracing on the Barclays Court, with a WNBA championship out of reach once more, will be the lasting image of the Lynx as we know it.
“We got to each other at special times in our career,” McBride said of the trio. “What we’ve created in Minnesota, our culture, when people come into it, they love it. They love being a part of what we’ve been able to grow these last couple years, and that’s not lost on me.”
