The Guru’s WNBA Report: New York Stops Minnesota’s Second Straight Attempted Comeback to Knot the Championship Best-of-Five Series 1-1.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

This particularly WNBA best-of-five championship finals is starting to resemble the production of a movie.

From the side of the New York Liberty, seeking their first ever title in a 28-season franchise search whose length matches the entire history of the league, Thursday’s Game 1 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn was a “Paradise Lost” adventure.

In the series opener, roaring to an overall 18-point lead in the first half and still up 15 with five minutes left in regulation, the New Yorkers succumbed to a series of twists and turns as the four-time past champion Minnesota Lynx rallied in overtime to flip the home court advantage while setting up Game Two on ABC on Sunday afternoon to be more adventurous.

And so it was that in front of another sellout that this round became “Paradise Rescued,” the Liberty about to go under again when another ferocious rally in the fourth quarter moved the Lynx within a basket at 66-64 with 5:36 left in regulation and the visitors going for the tie.

That’s when Brenna Stewart, who atoned a missed foul shot that would have won it in regulation on Thursday and missed a shot that would have kept things going in overtime, this time said “enough,” executing a pair of steals that set New York on a 14-2 finishing explosion for an 80-66 victory to knot things 1-1 as the action now moves to Minneapolis for the next two nights on ESPN at 8 p.m. in the Target Center.

For the Lynx, having stolen Game One, the next contest gives them a chance sweep the next two this week and claim an unprecedented fifth title and first since 2017, the last moment when Minnesota when got this far, which was the sixth time in seven years. None of the 20 teams who began 0-2 ever rallied to win the title.

For New York, the next one on Wednesday provides an opportunity to gain the upper hand and complete the quest.

For the neutral basketball fan, a split in the Midwest sets up a thrilling and decisive Game 5 back in Brooklyn next Sunday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN as the league throughout the playoffs has held its own in the eyeballs department fielding TV games against the NFL, a staging that was a declared a no-no in the early WNBA era.

In this one the Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu returned to her true form to power the home team to a 31-21 lead after the first quarter, scoring 12 of her 15 points, perhaps juiced by seeing from afar Oregon, her alma mater, edge Ohio State by a point in football in a 2-3 game that moved the Ducks into second place behind Texas in the weekly collegiate rankings.

Ionescu was 5-for-7 with three-pointers in the opening barrage, while Stewart set a championship round record with seven steals to add icing to a game-best 21 points and eight rebounds.

And while Jonquel Jones, who had 14 points and nine rebounds Sunday, was a bigger third force Thursday for the Liberty, though the effort went to waste, that role Sunday went to Philadelphia native and former Rutgers standout Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, whose shot from deep set off a 12-0 finish as part of a 20-point effort on the day playing before her mom Yolanda Laney, an all-American in her own right at Cheyney, and their Hall of Fame collegiate coach in both places in C. Vivian Stringer.

Laney-Hamilton didn’t play a large chunk of the regulation season having injured her knee before the league’s shut down for the Olympic break.

“I think what she brings is this grit, this toughness,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said of Laney-Hamilton. “All of us know she’s giving us whatever she’s got. And the way that she continued to be aggressive, they were going under on her and she knocked that thing down with confidence.

“She’s just impactful because she plays at both ends of the floor, and plays hard, and she’s a winner,” Brondello added. “So, happy that she got the success tonight and  keep building on it.”

The second straight sellout crowd, this one 18,040, was the largest Liberty attendance since their time in Brooklyn after moving from nearby Manhattan and Madison Square Garden.

Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier was clipped from her playoffs-long scoring explosions, collecting 16 points, while Courtney Williams, the heroine in Thursday’s comeback, scored 15 for the Lynx.

The crowd of notables included UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who counts Stewart and Collier among his former stars, they even teamed on an NCAA title squad in 2016.

Stewart, formerly with the Seattle Storm on two title teams prior to last season and who took a bunch of umbrage from Auriemma during the regular season portion of her freshman year before going on to win four straight MVP NCAA tourney titles in a consecutive fashion, gave a little of it back to her collegiate coach after the game.

Auriemma, who enters his 40th season next month, is four wins from passing recently retired Stanford coach and Hall of Famer Tara VanDerveer as the all-time Division I leader male or female.

Stewart also played on the Olympic gold medal team, the second of two which Auriemma coached in 2016.

“I kind of texted him,” Stewart said. “And I was like, you know what, it’s about time that you come to my game. I’ve been here for two years, and he hasn’t come down. What are you doing? Yeah, CD (associate head coach and Rutgers alum Chris Dailey who has been under Auriemma his whole time in Storrs), came, and she got the same message, too.”

 Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, the La Salle grad and native of South Jersey, who’s tied with Van Chancellor with the former Houston Comets, for the most titles, was also the Olympic mentor setting the eighth-straight record Gold Medal accomplishment last August in Paris.

Reeve spoke of where things fell apart opposite the success the Lynx achieved in the finals opener.

“Our offense was bad at a time when we really needed it,” Reeve said. “Our pace was slow, taking too long to get into things, and I didn’t we were terribly hard to play against.

“I’m more disappointed we let it get to 17, I’m more disappointed in that. I’m more than disappointed, I’m pissed that it happened again.”

Reeve will be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, part of the Class of 2024, on Nov. 7.

“It felt like we had no sense of urgency,” Williams said of the loss. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to come out ready to play, man. We can’t keep putting ourselves in a hole.”

Collier was already looking to return back in front of the Lynx home crowd.

“Obviously, you want to steal one on the road,” she said. “We’re really disappointed I think how we played today, but excited to go home and play in front of our home crowd, and we have to respond.

“We have to come out playing better than we did in these two games. It’s hard,” Collier continued.

“Like we are both competing for a championship. You have to play with a level of desperation from the very beginning, and so that’s what we’re going to need to do to come out in Game 3.”

While Minnesota was challenging New York, a few miles to the north, retired Lynx star Seimone Augustus out of LSU was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., with Hall of Famer and former Minnesota star Lindsay Whalen being her presenter.

 

    

 

The Guru’s WNBA Report: Minnesota Rallies From 18 Down to Stun Host New York 95-93 in Overtime to Take Finals Opener

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

NEW YORK —  At the conclusion of Thursday night’s pre-game press conference with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert here at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn prior to the opener of the league’s best-of-five finals between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, on the way out of the room, being of South Jersey origin, she turned to yours truly, acknowledging the area common roots, and remarked, “I was really sad to see what happened to the Phillies,” referencing  the baseball burial by the local Mets.

Anticipating the lifelong franchise failure here from the WNBA’s dormancy in 1997 soon to end from their women’s pro hoop stars, the town euphoria from the sellout crowd of 17,732 gushed into the first quarter as the Liberty fired a flurry of threes on the way to a 32-19 lead, the highest scoring opening playoffs quarter in franchise  history.

The New Yorkers, which owned an 18-point domination at one stretch, looked every bit the team that was the top seed heading into the postseason and Minnesota appeared to be suffering on a 48-hour turnaround malaise from their semifinals series that was extended back to Minneapolis for a Game 5 Tuesday night by the Connecticut Sun. 

But highlighted by a 10-0 run in the second quarter run it became a slimmer 44-36 lead at the half.

 From there, the visitors continued to dog the Liberty into a wild finish in regulation that went into overtime on a missed second-attempt foul shot that could have won it from Breanna Stewart, and Minnesota eked ahead to a 95-93 victory before the jammed packed arena of stunned onlookers.

“We’re the first team in WNBA playoff history to be down 15 (in the final five minutes) and come back and win the game,” said Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, the La Salle grad, also from South Jersey in the Philly burbs, who owns a record-tying four titles from the last decade and guided USA to its eighth straight gold medal in Paris last August.

“So that ranks really high (the comeback in a prolific coaching career). I think it defines our team. Getting through difficult times. That’s what we’ve been talking about. You have to be mentally tough, resilient … Thrilled that we could hang in there.”

Napheesa Collier, who has been explosive in the playoffs for the Lynx, in the extra period snapped a tie with 8.8 seconds left and Stewart’s layup as time expired missed its target.

“The basketball gods were on our side tonight,” said Minnesota’s Courtney Williams, who signed as a free agent for this season. She had 23 points and turned the volume off in the boisterous arena with a four-point play with 5.5 left in regulation.

Collier had 21 points, eight rebounds, three steals and six blocks, while Kayla McBride scored 23. Alanna Smith, the Stanford graduate who has aided the defense this season, had nine points, nine boards, four assists, and three blocks. And substitute Natisha Hiedeman out of Marquette who also played previously with the WNBA Sun, scored ten off the bench.

The comeback and upset, though Minnesota dominated the season series 3-1, including the Commissioner’s Cup, caused the Liberty to waste a standout performance by George Washington grad Jonquel Jones, who had 24 points and 10 rebounds.

Sabrina Ionescu scored 19, but was 8-for-26 from the field, while Stewart had 18 points, and German rookie Leonie Fiebich scored 17, setting a rookie playoffs record with  five from deep.p.m. 

Williams’ play came at the end of a 12-0 run in the final 3:23 of regulation that wiped out New York’s 11-point lead.

In the final moments of regulation, Stewart went for the win, was blocked, and then after the ball went out of bounds, she got the inbound from Ionescu and an officials review determined she was fouled with 0.8 left on the clock.

She went to the line, her first shot brought a roar, as she knotted the score, but her next attempt missed, the crowd hushed, and play went into overtime.

At that point, the momentum swung to the Lynx.

“We just take it on the chin, you know,” Stewart said. “We were up a lot and then we had a wild sequence to end the fourth. Didn’t start overtime great.

“I had a great look at the end, and I didn’t make it. But I think this is a series. We wanted to really win, obviously for home court. But the beauty is we have another game on Sunday, and we’ll be ready.”

New York coach Sandy Brondello said her team got away from their disciplines.

At the commissioner’s presser, Engelbert announced the lottery order in April’s draft, involving Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, will be at 5 p.m., Nov. 17, on ESPN, and the new Golden State team coming online in 2025 will draft fifth in each round after the lottery picks.

The finals next season will extend longer into October from a best-of-five to best-of-seven, the high seed hosts the first two games, the low seed the next pair, and then if it goes longer, it will be 1-1-1, the higher seed with the advantage.

The first round will go from a 2-1 favor high seed format to a 1-1-1 with the high seed the advantage.

The season will also expand again, going from 40 to 44 games.

Game two is Sunday night at 3 p.m. on ABC. 

The next one or, if necessary, two games move to Minneapolis, Wednesday and Friday with a fifth if necessary to snap a tie being played Sunday night, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

The recent 17 playoff games prior to Thursday night averaged 970,000 viewers, up 142 percent over a year ago, and are the most viewed across ESPN platforms since the league launched in 1997.

The semifinals averaged 850,000 across nine games, up 99 percent over last year, and most viewed on ESPN  networks in 25  years.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

The Guru’s WNBA Report: New York Rides 4th Quarter Surge Back to the Finals Snuffing Vegas Two-Year Reign While Connecticut Rallies to Force Game Five

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Taking a slim 53-51 lead into the fourth quarter in one of the two Game 4s in the WNBA semifinals played Sunday afternoon, the New York Liberty exploded on the road 23-11 in Las Vegas over the final ten minutes to power their way to a 76-62 victory and claim the best-of-five series 3-1 effectively ending the Aces’ two-year reign over the league.

Sabrina Ionescu, the top overall pick in the 2020 draft out of Oregon, scored 22 points as she bounced back from her miserable showing Friday night that was one factor in preventing the top-seeded New Yorkers from executing a 3-0 sweep over their fourth-seeded opponent.

However, as the Liberty return to finals where New York will have home court advantage when the series opens at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Thursday, it will take a bit longer to learn the identity of the opposition.

In the other semifinal that was played following the New York triumph, the third-seed Connecticut Sun at home at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, roared back from a 50-43 halftime deficit outscoring the second seed Minnesota Lynx 49-32 to win 92-82 knotting the series 2-2 and sending it back to Minneapolis and a decisive Game 5 Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN2 at the Target Center.

For New York, the win Sunday was a sweet payback for a year ago when the Aces narrowly took Game 4 in the finals in Brooklyn to claim the championship 3-1and the league’s first two-peat since the Los Angeles Sparks across 2001 and 2002.

The Liberty stepped up last season joining Vegas in superpower status by bringing in some of the top WNBA talent headlined by former UConn sensation Breanna Stewart, who won several titles with Seattle and some MVP honors besides the regular season citation won for her play with her new team.

“To hold Vegas to 24 points in the second half is pretty impressive,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said.

But New York, one of the remaining from the original eight WNBA teams from the inaugural 1997 summer, has yet to win a championship.

Certainly, the bitter loss 12 months ago to a squad missing some key players to injuries heightened the mission in 2024.

 The Liberty were the best of the upper tier this summer and went 5-0 over the Aces, three in the regular season, and the first two back home in this series before Vegas put a temporary halt on Friday night.

Winning in Sin City enabled the visitors to snap Vegas’ playoff record 12-game home win streak.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Stewart cautioned following her double double performance with 19 points and 14 rebounds. “This was a tough series, an emotional series for a number of different reasons.

“But we’re going to the finals and we’re hosting Game 1 and Game 2. We’re ready to go. Just the feeling of not satisfied.”

Although this will be the sixth finals appearance for New York most came in an earlier era until the drought ended last season.

Vegas coach Becky Hammon, an early New York star as an undrafted free agent and now in the Basketball Hall of Fame, spoke afterwards of the byplay of the two squads.

“We talked our crap, they heard, and they get to talk their crap,” she said.

“It’s Not personal. I can talk crap all I want. At the end of the day, I have mad respect for Sandy,” she said. “Sandy coached me. Me and Sandy go way back.

“Sab, Stewie, I have mad respect for those players. I think Stewie is phenomenal.”

Vegas was trying to win three straight crowns for the first time since the defunct Houston Comets won the first four titles through 2004 and after dropping the first two in Brooklyn also trying to be the first to rally from an 0-2 deficit in any playoff series.

Jonquel Jones, whose collegiate career was in the A-10 at George Washington, scored 14 for New York, while Leonie Fiebich, one of the all-rookie team recipients, scored 11.

A’ja Wilson, the unanimous choice for season MVP and former South Carolina star on Dawn Staley’s first of three-coached NCAA champions, had 19 points, 10 rebounds, while Kelsey Plum scored 17 for the home folks and Tiffany Hayes had 11 points.

Wilson talked about the challenge trying for a three-peat.

“It's hard,” she said. “You get everybody’s best. They were giving us their best before the banners started going up. You’re everybody’s Super Bowl.

“It sucks, it stinks, but i'm very proud about the group that we had.”

In talking about New York’s quick recovery from Friday’s loss, Ionescu said, “It was really nice to see how we stuck together. Obviously, we had a kind of rough game last game and it can go one of two ways.”

With Vegas dispatched things don’t get easier facing either of the squads looking to advance and were the top two defensive units.

Connecticut, which came into the league as an expansion club a few years after the launch as the Orlando Miracle under the NBA Magic, has never won a title but has been to the finals several times after the team was purchased by the Mohegan Indian Tribe and moved north.

Minnesota won four titles in the last decade and should the Lynx win No. 5 that would be a WNBA record for coach Cheryl Reeve, enabling the former La Salle star from South Jersey to snap the tie with Van Chancellor who guided Houston.

Both have steered USA to Olympic gold, but Reeve would be the first to do both in the same calendar year.

Reeve will be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 7.

But there’s still work to be done in the present and the Sun has not made things easy by stealing Game1 in Minnesota and then forcing Game 5 after dropping the next two.

Alyssa Thomas, the former Maryland standout from Harrisburg, nearly added to her prowess acquiring triple doubles with 18 points, 11 assists, and eight boards for the home team.

Looking to Tuesday, Sun coach Stephanie White, who guided Indiana to a title last decade, said, “Both of these franchises have been here, right? We have a lot of players on our roster that have been here and understand certainly what it takes and tonight’s effort is not going to be good enough.

“We expect them to make adjustments. We’ll make some tweaks and adjustments as well. It’s about making plays. It’s about the extra efforts, the hustle plays.

“It’s not about not being denied and finding something deep inside of you that just allows you to come out on top.”

Ty Harris, finally back in the lineup for the Sun after being sidelined with an ankle injury in Game 1 of the series, scored 20 points.

Napheesa Collier, the WNBA defensive player of the year, continued her offensive dominance for the Lynx scoring 29 with 13 rebounds.

“We’re not happy with, you know, how we came out the last two games,”the former UConn star said. “Our offense was able to lift us up last game, but if that’s not working, we have to rely on our defense.

“It’s not been good last two games. So we have to go home and defend our home court. We’re both playing for our lives, sows have to play at that level of intensity.”

Minnesota’s last finals in 2017 brought the Lynx’s fourth title in seven tries.

Natasha Hiedeman scored 12 against Connecticut, which she had played for in the recent past.

Except for Sunday’s Game 2 in the finals, which will air at 3 p.m. on ABC, the rest will all air at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

A New York/Connecticut finals would be the second that could be dubbed an Amtrak series following the one Washington won over the Sun in five in 2019.