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Alexa Philippou, ESPN
NEW YORK — The New York Liberty were the best team in the WNBA this year, but there was one squad that was the closest thing to a thorn in their side: the Minnesota Lynx, the only group to beat them multiple times this season.
To achieve what the franchise has never done before and win its first WNBA championship — after coming up short in the finals in 2023 — the Liberty must get through that same Lynx squad in the 2024 WNBA Finals, which begins with Game 1 Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.
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“They’re a great team, they’re a really good team… Obviously, they’ve beaten us a few [times]. I don’t think they’ve seen us at our best,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said Wednesday. “So now it’s about it’s a new season now. We have to bring our best and hopefully that’s enough.”
The Liberty’s 32-8 regular season record was best in the league this year, but two of those losses came at the hands of Minnesota. Another came in the 2024 Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game in late June, though New York avenged that defeat a week later at Barclays Center.
The Liberty have dropped just one game this postseason in Game 3 of the semifinals to the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces. Extending its streak of not losing consecutive games since late May, New York wrapped up that series in four games, using a 23-11 fourth quarter on Sunday to send the Aces home.
Brondello has continued to tweak things even as the stakes are raised, beginning with their first playoff game when she inserted German rookie Leonie Fiebich into the starting lineup in place of Courtney Vandersloot — a look Minnesota did not see in their meetings this season.
The Liberty and Lynx, who advanced to the Finals after beating the Connecticut Sun in a winner-take-all Game 5 matchup Tuesday, are teams with similar playing styles predicated on space, pace, sharing the ball and shooting. Both also are strong on the other end of the floor, coming in top-three in defensive rating.
“They play basketball in the right way,” Brondello said. “They have great teamwork. They have great defense. They really scramble on that and make it hard for you. They have athleticism. They have shooting. They all can shoot. They kind of space you out.”
Coming off their 2023 Finals defeat, the Liberty are “fueled by that feeling that we all felt in the locker room last year, to not feel that again,” Sabrina Ionescu said. “That fire is burning bright in all of us, and to be able to use that to continue to motivate us, and if we do that and control what we can, we’re the best team in the league, and no one can beat us.”
While New York made big moves in the 2023 offseason by acquiring Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Vandersloot, Minnesota’s 2024 signings didn’t make waves at the time.
The Lynx still managed to surpass expectations with players like Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith shining alongside returners Napheesa Collier, Kayla McBride and Bridget Carleton, and all of which having career years.
Minnesota, which emphasized Tuesday they aren’t just happy to be in the Finals, are led by Collier, the MVP runner-up who is the leading scorer in the playoff this year at 27.1 points per game. She’s also the first player in league history to tally 25 points and 10 rebounds in three consecutive postseason games.
“She’s great player, and she’s so crafty,” Brondello said of Collier. “It’s like, yeah, we know she wants to go left, oh yeah, she wants to go to her right shoulder. And she still does it every single game. So it’s just making it hard for her and I think we have to be locked in.”
“I think it’s just that understanding of what it is they’re trying to do, and us being able to dictate with our defense,” added Ionescu when asked about the keys to the matchup. “Because I think defensively, that’s changed a lot of games for us.”
The Lynx — one of sport’s greatest dynasties with WNBA titles in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017– enter Thursday with less rest and prep time than the Liberty. But the Lynx felt the series against a physical, gritty team in Connecticut made them battle-tested heading into the biggest challenge of all in the Finals.
“Be who we are, because who we are is really good,” coach Cheryl Reeve said of what they learned. “We don’t have to change things. We don’t have to all of a sudden play zone or do something like that. Just be who we are.”
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