Phoenix – Kayla McBride covered her face with her shirt, trying to hold back the tears. The season that she and her Minnesota Lynx teammates envisioned with a trophy and champagne ended with sadness and frustration.
The script that the Lynx had been diligently writing for the last 4 and a half months, did not include this ending. They were the best team in the WNBA, won a franchise record of 34 games, and earned the top seed in the playoffs. However, Minnesota’s season transformed from an inspiring musical to a shocking horror film.
In the crucial Game 4, Cheryl Reeve, the longest-tenured coach in the WNBA, was not on the court due to a one-game suspension for an ejection in Game 3 and criticism of the officiating. Napheesa Collier, a favorite for MVP for much of the season and Minnesota’s most important player, had to watch from the bench after an ankle injury at the end of Friday’s game.
The Lynx squandered multiple double-digit leads and lost 86-81 to the Phoenix Mercury, ending this playoff campaign and the promise of a championship-aspiring season. In a somber post-game press conference, McBride, the veteran guard, tried to sum up the anguish.
“Being close two years in a row,” said McBride, who scored 31 points in Game 4.
Kayla McBride
Last season, minutes after an overtime loss of 67-62 to the New York Liberty in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on October 20, the Lynx arrived at their press conferences with angry comments about the refereeing and how they felt it had cost them the championship. The Lynx vowed to return in 2025, but this time to claim the franchise’s fifth title. And for almost five months, it seemed they had done everything right: they returned their five starters, made some key additions, had the league’s best regular season record, and secured home-court advantage for the playoffs with five games still to play.
They began the postseason with a 2-0 sweep of Golden State in the first round. They won Game 1 of the semifinals against Phoenix and had a 48-32 lead at halftime of Game 2 of the best-of-five series.
So, things got out of control. For the first time in franchise history, the Lynx lost a game in which they led by at least 16 points at halftime; previously they had a record of 61-0. And that overtime loss by 89-83 to the Mercury last Tuesday was not just a bump that the Lynx needed to overcome to continue their mission.
It was the beginning of the end.In Friday’s Game 3 in Phoenix, the Lynx had a 67-63 lead after three quarters. But Minnesota lost the final quarter 21-9, as well as someone even more important: Collier, who was injured on a steal by Phoenix’s Alyssa Thomas with 23.8 seconds remaining.
Reeve, seeing her franchise player on the ground in pain, lost her temper. She was ejected from the game, which the Mercury won 84-76, and again criticized the league’s officiating in a brief post-game interview with the media.
The play in which Collier was injured was just the spark that lit a fuse built up over a long time for Reeve. He is still bothered almost a decade later by a shot clock violation committed by Los Angeles in Game 5 of the 2016 WNBA Finals, which the Sparks won by one point for the championship.
Then, of course, the late call against the Lynx in Game 5 against New York last season led Reeve to say afterward: “This was stolen from us.” Reeve thought this season could be a balm for that. Instead, it leaves the Lynx with another wound.
“You want it for the people [you’re with] every day,” McBride said. “In professional sports, there’s nothing better than what we have in our locker room. We deliver for each other. It’s never been about anything other than each other.”
To understand the depth of the disappointment, one need only see how long it has taken to build this foundation. Seven years have passed since the retirement of the three key players from the four Minnesota championship teams from 2011 to 2017: Maya Moore, Lindsay Whalen, and Rebekkah Brunson. The Lynx began a new era in 2019 by drafting Collier, who fell to the number 6 spot in what has proven to be arguably the biggest draft underestimation in league history.
“She was the type of person who was exactly an extension of the Lynx culture that was built before her,” Reeve said during a postgame press conference on September 6. “Without that, if you have a superstar who isn’t someone people want to be around, people aren’t as interested in coming to Minnesota to play.”
In Collier’s first three seasons, the Lynx never made it past the second round of the playoffs. In 2022, the team didn’t make the playoffs for the first time since 2010. After a first-round loss in 2023, the Lynx still faced questions heading into 2024. But they answered those, building a team around Collier as the superstar. They won a Commissioner’s Cup title in June, and then were agonizingly close to the WNBA title in October.
“I call it the honeymoon. People didn’t necessarily see us in the space we were in last year,” Reeve said at a pre-game press conference on September 21. “So we started the season from a very different perception about us. Expectations were much higher.”
This season, the Lynx brought back their six best players from 2024: forwards Collier, Alanna Smith, and Bridget Carleton, and guards Courtney Williams, McBride, and Natisha Hiedeman. They brought back forward Jessica Shepard, who had missed the 2024 season due to her commitment abroad.
They also made strategic changes. They added Maria Kliundikova, a free agent signing on June 6, and another 6-foot-4 post player like Smith and Shepard who brings more size in the paint. On August 3, they traded guard DiJonai Carrington, the league’s Most Improved Player last season and known for her high-level defense.
The Lynx seemed to have planned for every eventuality. Even when Collier injured his ankle in August and missed seven games, the Lynx stayed on track. They lost the Commissioner’s Cup final to Indiana on July 1, but that only strengthened their determination to win the season championship.
And Collier, at least publicly, seemed to ignore the disappointment of falling short in the MVP race, A’ja Wilson earned her fourth after a fantastic second half, saying her real goal was the championship.
“I feel like I’m still focused on the championship,” Collier said on September 21, the day the MVP winner was announced. “That’s been my main goal all season. Of course, I want to win the MVP. But the championship is what I really want for this season.”
What went wrong? Reeve and his staff will dissect that throughout the offseason. Losing both Collier and Carrington, who suffered a season-ending foot injury in Game 2 of the first round, had a big impact.
But the Lynx also saw their killer instinct diminish a bit. They beat Golden State in Game 2, 75-74. They were down 47-40 at halftime of their Game 1 semifinal before rallying against Phoenix. Then they lost three straight. They hadn’t had more than two consecutive losses in the regular season, and that only once, in August, when Collier was out.
After a good start in Game 4 on Sunday, and a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Lynx seemed poised to force Game 5 back in Minneapolis.
But for the third time in six days, the Mercury took control, and the Lynx watched their dream season evaporate. They became the eleventh team in WNBA history to have the league’s best record but not win the championship, and the sixth of those teams to not even reach the WNBA Finals.
“I didn’t watch this season and I said, ‘Oh, this is difficult because we have a target on our backs,'” Williams said on Sunday, carrying the favorite tag since they started 9-0. “That’s what we wanted, right? We were hit with that plague of injuries and, you know, it’s difficult. Cheers to us for not giving up.”
Because many of the league’s players will be free agents for next season (a new collective bargaining agreement is needed first), the Lynx are unsure of what their roster will look like in 2026, a fact that makes the painful end of this season even more poignant.
“As a veteran, someone older, I feel everything,” said McBride, 33. “I just care. But I would feel this 100 times more to be with the people I’ve been with. You just want it to continue.”
