The Too-Small Lynx Will Have To Answer Some Big Questions
As end-of-season Minnesota Lynx press conferences go, this year’s was pretty subdued. There was no “shit was stolen from us,” no missives delivered against Cathy Engelbert. “I don’t have a speech prepared, so everyone can relax,” Napheesa Collier said at the start of her exit interview Thursday afternoon. After an 87-71 loss to the New York Liberty in Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs, the eliminated Lynx are just looking inward.
The Liberty, set to the play the Atlanta Dream in the second round starting Sunday, became the first No. 8 seed to knock out a No. 1 seed in the first round. “It sucks,” was all Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve had to say about that distinction after the loss Tuesday night. It probably doesn’t deserve more analysis than that. The strength of this particular No. 8 seed is one reason: The Liberty are a veteran, playoff-tested team still led by one of the greatest players of all time. And in a way it did not a few years ago, when three-quarters of a 12-team league made the playoffs, it does also take a little more accomplishment to appear in the WNBA postseason these days. The last time the Liberty were a No. 8 seed, in 2021, they made the playoffs with a 12-20 record. This year, with a 26-18 record, they finished just seven games back of the Lynx, while eight games separated the Liberty and No. 9 Portland.
Beyond unfortunate history, the first-round loss makes for a sooner-than-expected start to what might be the league’s most interesting offseason. The thought on everyone’s mind Tuesday night and again at Minnesota’s media availability Thursday was something like: Two’s a coincidence, three’s a trend. Why has the Lynx season ended in heartbreak for three straight years?
That’s another distinction that might look harsher than it should. Recall 2024’s “shit was stolen from us” Finals, a series decided (controversially!) in overtime of a decisive Game 5. In the 2025 semifinals, the Lynx were struggling against the Mercury even when Napheesa Collier was healthy, but her injury late in Game 3 and eventual absence from Game 4 foreclosed a lot of hope. I don’t think it’s true to say these Lynx teams haven’t been good enough to win championships. Each one has been talented, disciplined, and well-coached. I do think it’s true that in three postseasons now, the Lynx have been at the same disadvantage.
The Lynx and Liberty both deserved their share of doubt when the playoffs began. Minnesota’s hot start masked a serious defensive slide in the later months of the season. The Liberty are … the Liberty. It felt easier to extend the benefit of the doubt to Minnesota than to New York. The case for the Liberty rested on a hope that the team could “flip the switch,” a switch they’d proven incapable of flipping last year. The Lynx, to their credit, ended their regular season with a triumphant and somewhat reassuring win. But the first game of their series confirmed all the Lynx skeptic’s suspicions. Against a team with size at every position, the Lynx looked small, weak, and hesitant. New York’s Game 1 win was the worst kind for Minnesota: not an artifact of shooting luck or fluky plays, but hard proof that New York had what it needed to cut off the Lynx offense’s oxygen. The 6-foot-11 Han Xu’s Wembanyama-esque sequence in the fourth quarter, a three sandwiched by a pair of blocks, spelled sure doom.
The Olivia Miles-Natasha Howard pick-and-roll, once an almost mindlessly easy option for Minnesota, just didn’t work when the 6-foot-2 Howard had to battle the size of 6-foot-4 Breanna Stewart, 6-foot-6 Jonquel Jones, 6-foot-4 Leonie Fiebich, and Han. “They’re big,” Reeve said. “Unfortunately for us, Liv and Tasha were just sort of rendered ineffective.”
New York’s size advantage is one they hold against every team in the playoffs, but it will never be so dramatic as it was against the undersized Lynx. “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 when it comes to playoffs,” Reeve said Tuesday. As the team’s head of basketball operations, she’ll need to solve that problem before next season. If Miles underwhelmed in her first playoff series, the rookie point guard is still a pretty easy player to build around.
The team’s biggest question might be out of Reeve’s hands, though. Collier, a free agent now, said Thursday that she hasn’t given much thought to her decision yet. But her choice to return to Minnesota on a one-year deal last offseason, when she was injured, signaled that she might be seriously considering another team. On Thursday, Reeve couldn’t offer fans much reassurance: “She knows what’s here. If she lands on being here, great. If there’s something better for her, that’s life.”
