Lynx look forward to 2025, but won’t forget controversy of WNBA title game loss

“It brought us closer because we had this shared pain,” Whalen said.

And, months later, joy. “I look back at it and I don’t think we get that feeling of 2017 without the pain of the year before.”

That was the message she and Brunson tried to impart after Sunday’s practice.

“They were telling us sometimes you have to go through that to get to the top of the mountain,” Collier said. “OK, so we lost. We have that chip on our shoulder. Now we have to go get us one. When we tell our story, we’re going to tell about how we lost the first time, but came back and won the second time.”