The Guru’s WNBA Report: Napheesa Collier Leads Lynx to Game 5 and Series Win Over the Sun Setting Up Finals Battle of the UConn Alums Against New York and Breanna Stewart

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Somehow over the history of the WNBA championships, many of them has had a UConn all-time great, at times even several, right in the middle of the postgame champagne celebrations.

Now there will be two of them, teammates on the 2016 UConn collegiate champions, going against each other in a myriad of storylines in a 1 vs. 2 seeding matchup Thursday night when the best-of-five finals gets under way at 8 p.m. on ESPN from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with the top dogs to date New York Liberty hosting the Minnesota Lynx.

The Lynx snuffed another attempt by the Connecticut Sun Tuesday Night to stay alive to continue a push for a first-ever title by taking a decisive 88-77 semifinals Game 5 not that close at home in the Target Center in Minneapolis.

This season New York edged the Lynx by two games for the top seed and home court advantage, but Minnesota won the season series 3-1 including the Commissioner’s Cup.

Leading the way Tuesday night as she had in all but one game in the series was WNBA defensive player of the year and Huskies alum Napheesa Collier, who scored 27 points shooting 10-for-16 from the field while South Florida alum Courtney Williams scored 24 against her former team.

Waiting on the Lynx arrival coming with no days’ rest for the Wednesday practice sessions and opening press conferences is the Liberty and Breanna Stewart, another former Huskies standout who a year ago as a free agent left the Seattle Storm where she won MVP honors and titles to return to her home state and help the New Yorkers finally reach the promised land.

The Liberty punched a return ticket to the finals on the road Sunday afternoon ending the Las Vegas Aces’ two-year reign by winning their semifinals series 3-1.

But if the the Liberty, one of the remaining of the eight original WNBA charter group in 1997, are title poor, the Lynx are very title rich — four of them over seven years the last decade from 2011 thru 2017, though this will be Minnesota’s first championship round since the close of that run when they took Game 5 in an era that featured UConn standout Maya Moore and local star and Hall of Famer Lindsay Whalen, who was in the house for the Tuesday matchup with the Sun.

At game’s end, Collier, who grew up in Jefferson City, Mo., as did Moore, headed to hug Whalen and soon thereafter said, “I definitely want to do her proud.”

Stewart and Collier were also teammates on the USA squad that won a record eighth straight Olympic gold medal in Paris last summer and this winter are launching a league to play in Florida in January promising sizable incomes as an option for WNBA players to not go overseas in the offseason to earn larger paydays.

That USA squad in Paris was coached by Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve, the La Salle grad from South Jersey, who on Nov. 7 will be one of the 2024 induction class members into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

Reeve is tied with Hall of Famer Van Chancellor, who won the first four WNBA titles with they’veformer Houston Comets and led USA Gold in 2004. She is three wins from being the first to do both in the same calendar year.

UConn’s Geno Auriemma won both a second gold and his fourth straight and 11th overall NCAA crown in 2016, Stewart’s senior year that made her forecast of four straight become reality after she set her sights on the feat when she won her first as a freshman.

Collier also had 11 rebounds, four assists, and four blocks against the Sun, who forced a Game 5 on Sunday.

“She’s improved every season,” Reeve said. “She’s just been incredible. Every game, it’s more than scoring how she helps our team. When she plays like the MVP, we’re tough to beat.”

Collier averaged 40 in the 2-0 opening round blast of Phoenix.

With either unanimous season MVP A’ja Wilson of the Aces, or rookie sensation Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever, not in the finals, anyone who thinks that is cause enough to stop paying attention to what is still ahead, is displaying total ignorance.

Sun coach Stephanie White said after Collier vanquished her team, “She’s just the combination of everything you want in a player, but I think the thing that makes her so special outside of the obvious skill set is she doesn't get rushed.

 “She stays so poised, no matter what, and you can tell the rest of her team feeds off of that.”

Noted Collier, picked sixth in the 2019 draft, “The fact that we have worked so hard and we genuinely just like each other so much, it just makes it all sweeter.

“It makes you want to win for them too, it's not just like you want to get the accolade of winning a championship. You want to do it for your teammates as well. I think that makes the ride much sweeter. We want to keep playing because we want to stay together.”

New York is coached by Sandy Brondello, who won titles in Phoenix with the greatest of all UConn stars in Diana Taurasi, who is expected to retire after a 21-year career and record six Olympic gold medals.

Other super talent brought in by the Liberty last year to add to Sabrina Ionescu, the overall No. 1 pick out of Oregon in 2020, Rutgers grad Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and 2022 first round pick (5th overall) Nyara Sabally, also out of Oregon; include George Washington grad Jonquel Jones, Courtney Vandersloot, and this year, Germany’s Leonie Fiebich, who made the all rookie team.

New York opened in betting circles immediately after Tuesday’s game as a heavy favorite, according to ESPN, which would be no surprise to Reeve, reflecting on the perception of her team during the season.

“We didn't scare anybody,” Reeve said. “I'm not sure that anybody at any point in the season was like, ‘yeah, they have a real shot at winning the championship, ' other than the people that are in our corner. And i think we're continuing to have to make believers.”

Not considered in the championship mix at the season’s outset, the Lynx performance earned Reeve coach and executive of the year honors.

Minnesota came roaring from the opening tip, Tuesday night, keyed by Notre Dame grad Kayla McBride, who had 10 of her 19 points in the first quarter before the Lynx went up by 21 in the next.

Williams, who came to Minnesota this season, was 6-for-6 by the break.

“When you start a game like that, you kind of know the hoop’s feeling big, you've got the super green light. I think that's the confidence that Cheryl gives us.”

Williams also had seven assists and five rebounds.

There was also a bit of revenge after Connecticut knocked the Lynx out in the Target Center last year in the first round.

“They just kind of punched us in the face, and we got shellshocked and then we couldn't fight back,” said the Sun’s DeWanna Bonner, who had 14 points, while DiJonai Carrington scored 17 points with 12 rebounds, and Brionna Jones had 16 points and 10 boards, but Alyssa Thomas had just seven points and six assists.

The Sun were defensed into 38.5 percent from the floor and forced into 19 turnovers the Lynx mined into 22 points.

Connecticut has been stopped in this round from having moved further four times the last six years, the other two they lost in the finals in Game 5 at Washington in 2019, and to Vegas, the first of the two Aces crowns in 2022.

Game 2 is Sunday at 3 p.m. on ABC also in New York before moving to Minneapolis Wednesday for Game 3 at 8 p.m. on ESPN, which will also air, if the series extends to, Game 4 Friday, Oct. 18 from Minneapolis at 8 p.m., and Game 5 on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. back in New York.