Lynx take down Liberty in overdue first meeting of 2024 Finals opponents

It feels both like yesterday and a century ago, all at the same time. And it’s hard to believe there hasn’t been chance for these two teams to meet on the court again before July 30.

“It doesn’t feel like a finals rematch anymore, honestly,” Napheesa Collier told reporters after practice on Tuesday. “It’s a new year for us and it’s been so long, like it’s almost August. It’s just the two top teams going against each other. We prepare for them like they’re a really great team, which they are, so it doesn’t really feel like retribution for last year. It just feels like we’re about to play a really good team.”

If the matchup between last year’s champions and runners-up feels overdue, the league schedule will make up for that in short order. Wednesday night’s clash marked the first of four times Minnesota and New York will meet again over a span of just three weeks. 

“I think common sense would say that those two teams probably should have played earlier in the season,” Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve said to the media after practice on Tuesday. “The Rubik’s Cube that is our WNBA schedule, I guess it’s not solvable, I’m not the person that does it. Certainly there’s challenges, but I think it’s a big miss for sure.”

A Rubik’s Cube is a kind suggestion for a schedule that has felt more like a game of Twister. Before the Lynx faced the Liberty (or the Indiana Fever in regular-season scheduled programming), they had already concluded their meetings with Western Conference foes Los Angeles and Phoenix, and more recently completed four games in 17 days with the Chicago Sky. 

“This is like the third team we’ve done it with too,” Lynx All-Star and co-captain Kayla McBride said after the game on Wednesday. “We just did it with Chicago. We just play all these teams, I don’t know. This is the first time we saw New York too, and we haven’t even seen Indy yet, except in the Commissioner’s Cup, so it’s just strange. It is frustrating. I guess it’s good preparation for a playoffs. … There’s pros and cons to anything, but I’d just like [it] a little more spread out.”    

The passage of time since last October wasn’t the only source draining the hype leading into this game. The Liberty are in the middle of a prolonged absence of star player Breanna Stewart due to a bone bruise in her right knee. Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said before the game that there’s no major damage, but didn’t specify a time table for a return other than: “we want to make sure she’s right for the playoffs.” 

New York was also missing important role players in Nyara Sabally and Kennedy Burke, and are still awaiting the official arrival of 2025’s in-season free agent prize Emma Meesseman. Add it all up and Brondello’s bench featured a total of nine players in uniform to try and hand the No. 1 team in the WNBA in front of both a packed house and a national television audience tuning in on ESPN.

Lynx fans in attendance may not have gotten to see New York’s full embarrassment of riches on the court, but they did see their hometown team get back to its winning ways in the form of a 100-93 victory to improve to 23-5 on the season, 15-1 at home, and 5-0 when coming off a loss. They also got to see yet another resume-building MVP level performance from Collier, who tallied a second-consecutive 30-point game, on 11-of-16 shooting, nine rebounds, two assists, and three blocked shots. 

“If you like basketball, you like watching Phee play,” McBride said after the game. “She does it in so many ways. She’s very graceful … she’s just a good basketball player. … When she’s in the flow, it’s a beautiful thing to watch as a fan and as one of her teammates. She just continues to do everything that we could possibly ask her [to do] and with such grace, also.” 

Collier scored 19 of her 30 points in the first half, including a run in the last three minutes of the half when she outscored New York 9-2 to give the Lynx a nine-point lead at the intermission. 

“I don’t know, I thought we were doing our normal stuff,” Collier said during the postgame press conference when asked if the game plan called for her to get the ball more than usual. “I don’t think there were any more plays run for me than normal, I don’t know. I kind of blackout during the games, I’m not going to lie.”

Collier and McBride, seated beside her, both broke out in laughter. “We are all consciously trying to get Phee the ball at all times,” McBride added with a laugh. 

Collier got plenty of help from the rest of the Lynx offense. McBride poured in 24 points on 14 shots from the field, connecting on 5-of-9 from deep, her 6th game of the season with five or more 3-pointers. Alanna Smith, Bridget Carleton, and Natisha Hiedeman all came off the bench to notch double-figure scoring nights, and Courtney Williams matched a career-high 13 assists and committed just one turnover. 

It may have taken way too long for this matchup to take place, and it may have been lacking the star power to make it feel like a true grudge match, but it still held the same punch-for-punch nature of a big-time prize fight between two prestigious opponents. 

“I thought New York played great, I thought maybe the time they spent together post-Dallas game showed itself in our game and they were a handful,” Reeve said during postgame in reference to a lengthy team meeting the Liberty had after a disappointing loss to the Dallas Wings two nights prior. “Luckily, we were able to score a little more than them. If the game went on a little bit longer, that might not have been the case. [A] 31-point fourth quarter, not ideal, but we found a way to win and it’s a good win, because winning in this league is not easy to do.” 

The Lynx led by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter, but a furious charge led by Sabrina Ionescu (who made 14 of her 31 points in the final period) cut the deficit to just four in the final two minutes. 

Even in the high-scoring affair, the defensive performance by Smith in particular left a stamp all over the contest and showed how Minnesota can ride its league-leading defense through an upcoming tough August stretch. Reigning Finals MVP Jonquel Jones scored 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, but went over 20 minutes of game-time between points from the middle of the second quarter to the middle of the fourth as the New York offense struggled to find consistency. Thanks in large part to Smith, who is tied for 2nd in the league in blocked shots with A’ja Wilson, and added three blocks to her season tally, providing a bastion of disruption all night. 

“‘Lan was great,” Reeve said postgame. “‘Lan takes pride in, we always talk about how competitive she is, and she takes pride in her one-on-one matchup. Obviously, JJ is difficult to play against, and ‘Lan was just really attentive to the spot she’d like to get to and how she was going to counter that. Her defense was exceptional, she had seven deflections on the game, three blocks, ‘Lan was really valuable.

“…I do think about, she was good last year, [she’s] clearly one of the best defensive players in the league, so an all-defensive nod would obviously be an end of season award for her,” Reeve continued. “We count on her heavily.” 

These teams will meet three more times between August 10-19 (three consecutive games for the Lynx) and could meet up to seven more times in the postseason. Chapter one is in the books for a pair of teams who met nine times during last calendar year. By the next time these two tip off, the trade deadline will have come and gone, Meesseman will have made her way to New York, and a range of possibilities will be in play. It’s a different world on a night-to-night basis. The Lynx may not have found the blueprint to show exactly how to dethrone the defending champions by the time the 2025 season reaches its conclusion, but it’s still the result they wanted in one game and the result they’ll seek again for 16 more games this regular season.

In Lynx terms, it was another night of simply ‘letting the main thing be the main thing.’ What it means for the future will come to light soon.

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