The Guru’s WNBA Roundup: Minnesota Runs Record to 3-0 on Champion New York on McBride’s Dagger

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

It may have been a long wait all the way to July 30 thanks to the WNBA schedule makers until Minnesota got its first chance to face New York since last October when the Liberty edged the Lynx in the finals at the finish in overtime of the decisive Game 5 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the franchise’s first championship in its 28-year history dating to the league’s inaugural summer in 1997.

But after both teams roared away from the rest of the league this season including a franchise best-ever 9-0 getaway by the defending champions its been Minnesota mania the last several months after successive injuries brought the Liberty back to the pack.

Though front-running MVP contender Napheesa Collier has been sidelined for two weeks since suffering a sprained ankle during a WNBA road-record 111-58 wipeout at Las Vegas, the Lynx came into Saturday’s only league-scheduled contest on a 5-0 run that began a game before with a 100-93 home win over New York and continued with a second 83-71win over the Liberty last Sunday in Brooklyn.

Collier will be re-evaluated this week.

The Liberty have had their own problems with finals MVP Jonquel Jones out over a month with an ankle injury while Breanna Stewart, who co-founded the new offseason Unrivaled League with Collier that launched last winter, has missed 12 contest since suffering a bone bruise on her right knee in the opening minutes of a home loss to Los Angeles on July 26.

New York, however, showed it still had plenty of fight Saturday when across the halves it erupted on a 16-0 run and took a 43-38 lead to threaten the Lynx pursuit at home of going up 3-0 in the four-game series before a crowd of 10,810 in the Target Center in Minneapolis.

The Liberty continued to hold their own leading 71-66 early in the fourth quarter until the shots stopped dropping as the Lynx rallied to go ahead 79-78 on Courtney Williams’ shot with 1:46 left.

And there it stayed until Minnesota’s Kayla McBride hit a 3-point dagger with 31.9 left.

Leonie Fiebich went inside assisted by Saint Joseph’s grad Natasha Cloud with 27.2 left to make it 82-80.

But the Liberty failed to score the rest of the way and forced to foul, McBride twice went 1-2 from the line before Sabrina Ionescu missed a 3-point attempt.

Minnesota’s Jessica Shepard grabbed the rebound and finished it with two more from the line and the Lynx prevailed 86-80 to run their record to 28-5, second best by one over 33 games in league history.

“Credit to New York, they played in a way that flipped the flow of the game,” said Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, the former La Salle star from South Jersey. “Defensively, we weren’t great. We got to a five minute game, and then a three minute game and then we found our mental and physical fortitude and just gutted it out.

“I have to go back and watch cause there’s a lot of things we didn’t do well and I’m sure Sandy (Brondello) feels the same but take the dub. You’re home, incredible crowd. The fans like the game with these teams. We go there Tuesday. It’ll be the same. It’s wonderful for the WNBA.”

Williams scored 26 for the Lynx, shooting 10-18 from the field, including 3-6 from distance while McBride and Sheppard each scored 17 with the latter grabbing 10 rebounds, and Alanna Smith was 6-11 scoring 14 points with seven boards.

New York was led by Jones shooting 7-11 for 17 points, Ionescu scored 13 with 10 boards, reserve Kennedy Burke scored 11, reserve Marine Johannes scored 12, and Cloud and Emma Meesseman each scored 10.

“We had six players in double figures, which shows we’re playing the right way, though I thought we got stagnant in the first quarter,” said Liberty coach Sandy Brondello. “We were  right there. Execution could have been better down the stretch but we competed.”

New York was 5-8 from the line while Minnesota was 23-33.

“You tell me,” Brondello said of the discrepancy. “Same last game. Maybe we don’t drive hard enough.”

Besides Stewart, who hopes to be back before the end of the month, Isabelle Harrison remained sidelined in concussion protocol and Nayara Sabally is still out with a knee injury.

The two teams meet for the third time in nine days Tuesday back in Brooklyn – the third straight for the Lynx – and for New York  (21-13), there’s more than pride on the line.

The Liberty, now 7.5 behind the Lynx, dropped back to third with the loss a half-game behind Atlanta (21-12) and if the two met in the semifinals the Dream today would have home advantage in the best-of-five series.

New York is also only a game in front of Phoenix (19-13) and Las Vegas (20-14), the latter on a six-game win streak.

The Lynx magic number for the home advantage in the best-of-three first round  is two and five for top seed, which if advancing to the finals, is home advantage in the newly expanded best-of-seven series.

Looking Ahead

It’s a five-game deal in the WNBA Sunday as it will be again Tuesday while no games are slated Monday.

Every game Sunday will have a playoff implication looking to Sept. 11 when the pairings for the eight-team field are set.

Indiana (18-16) is at last-place Connecticut (6-26) at 1 p.m. on NBA TV.

The visiting Fever, whose reigning rookie of the year Caitlin Clark will miss her 21st game overall, have fallen to seventh, a half-game behind expansion Golden State (18-15) and just one in front of Seattle (17-17), which is in the last playoff spot.

Just outside the cutoff Los Angeles (16-17) is ninth by a half-game while Washington (15-18) is 1.5 out and the two meet in the nation’s capital at 3 p.m. on ESPN3.

Seattle hosts Phoenix (19-13) at 6 p.m. The visitors are in a fourth-place tie with Las Vegas (20-14) which carries one of four home advantages in the opening round. The two are a game behind New York and 1.5 behind Atlanta, but only 1.5 ahead of Golden State (18-15).

Las Vegas hosts at 11th-place Dallas (9-25) at 3:30 p.m. on ABC/ESPN+.

Golden State, which has set a wins record for an expansion team’s first season, is trying to be the first newbie making the playoffs and the Valkyries host Atlanta at 8:30 p.m. on NBA TV at the Chase Center in San Francisco which is shared with the NBA Warriors and which has been the site of another WNBA mark with all home games containing sellout crowds of 18,000+.