Courtney Williams Helps The Lynx Slide Their Way Into The Finals

As the Minnesota Lynx blew out the Connecticut Sun in Game 5 of the WNBA semifinals Tuesday, they looked like they had spent years gelling together. They were the better team on both ends of the floor. Part of that can be chalked up to the simple existence of Napheesa Collier, who put up her third consecutive game of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds, a WNBA postseason record, and could probably turn a quartet of traffic cones into a sound basketball team.

But the Lynx have been a treat to watch precisely because they’re not a one-woman show. Instead, they are insistent on a harmonious style of hoop, heavy on ball movement. Watching them skate past the Sun, 88-77, and rejoice with the traditional post-victory Electric Slide, it was hard to believe a team this cohesive was still so new: Only five players on this Lynx team returned from the roster last season, and of those five, only three have meaningfully figured in this playoff run. This team was assembled in free agency and on the trading block by Cheryl Reeve and her double-duty as head coach and president of basketball ops. Tuesday’s elimination game was specifically a showcase for the Lynx’s most critical offseason signing: veteran guard Courtney Williams, who had 24 points, seven assists, and five rebounds.

Williams plays an extremely taxing brand of basketball without ever actually appearing taxed. She’s frisky and relentless at all times; she draws the eye just as forcefully when she’s tormenting an opposing ball-handler as when catapulting herself into the lane. As much as Collier is the backbone of this team, it’s the aggression of Williams that creates many of the initial advantages for them, both in transition and the half-court. Once she’s punched a hole in the defense, any number of auspicious things could happen. When Williams gets two feet in the paint, she can choose her own adventure: swing-swing, corner three from one of their many shooters; hit the rolling Collier for a smooth layup; or a sneaky finish at the rim herself.

Williams’s energy was matched only by that of her dad, sitting courtside but more often standing. “Where the rest of the dads at?” Donald Williams asked SB Nation’s Noa Dalzell. “How can you miss this type of euphoria?”

In the first half of Game 5, Williams took the scoring duties into her own hands, going 6-of-6 from the field and helping establish the Lynx’s lead that proved unassailable. Coming back in the third quarter, Williams began forcing the issue a little bit, and the ball stuck in her hands more than Reeve liked, but after some time on the bench, the guard got back to her usual ways and kept the flow going for the Lynx in the final stretch.

Williams had played for four different WNBA teams—including two separate stints with the opposing Sun—before she arrived in Minnesota, a team that had just failed its 2023 tank job so badly that it stumbled into a playoff appearance. Minnesota clearly just needed a sound surrounding cast as Collier rounded into an MVP-caliber player. Williams offered a burst of athleticism, some of the best mid-range shooting in the league—the only other player to make 100 mid-range shots in the regular season was league MVP A’ja Wilson, and Williams matched her in efficiency—and a capable partner in the pick-and-roll game with Collier, an action that proved especially potent because the Lynx enjoyed the league’s best spacing.

ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike, who had played alongside Williams on the Sun early in her career, pointed out just how much the guard has developed her game over the course of her nine seasons. When she got to the league, Williams was an off-guard who focused on pouring in the points with one-dribble pull-ups. Now, she was playing the point and orchestrating an offense well enough to make the WNBA Finals.

Even the woman responsible for signing Williams, who won both Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year honors this season, didn’t expect it to work out quite this well. “I’m blessed. I don’t know if I really knew what we were getting. The basketball player for sure, I’d watched for years,” Reeve said after the game. “But I don’t know if I knew exactly what we were getting.”