WNBA Finals Storylines
The Liberty and Lynx are set to square off for the 2024 WNBA championship
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After 257 regular season and playoff games, the WNBA’s 28th season is down to at most 200 minutes of basketball, give or take some overtime. The Finals are here and this is everything you need to know heading into Game 1.
What’s at Stake?
The Lynx have extended their WNBA record with a seventh appearance in the Finals and are looking to break a tie for the most titles in league history with a fifth.
This is Minnesota’s first appearance in the Finals since 2017 when they won their fourth title and made their sixth appearance in the Finals in a seven-season span.
Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve has been at the helm for all seven Finals appearances. With a win, she’d have the most titles by a WNBA head coach with her fifth (currently tied with Van Chancellor, who was the coach for all four of the Houston Comets’ championships).
The Liberty break a tie with the Sparks and Mercury (both 3-2 in Finals appearances) for the second-most appearances. They’re in their sixth Finals but are looking to get over the hump for the first time.
New York’s five series losses are already the most in Finals history, but with a win, they’d leave the Sun (0-4) as the team with the worst record and the Dream (0-3) as the only other team with multiple appearances and no titles (including defunct franchises).
The Liberty are looking to avoid becoming the first team to lose back-to-back Finals since the Dream in 2010-11 and the first franchise to do it twice. It also happened to the Liberty in 1999-2000 and the Sun in 2004-05.
The Liberty would be the 12th different franchise to win a WNBA championship and the last of the four remaining original franchises to get on the board, though they’d still have the fewest of the quartet. The Sparks and Mercury each have three and the one-time Utah Starzz won their first two titles the last two years in their third home city as the Las Vegas Aces.
The Regular Season Series
Minnesota has won three of four meetings with the Liberty this season including the Commissioner’s Cup championship (which notably was not at Barclays Center) and a nine-point win in the third-to-last game of the regular season (which notably was at Barclays Center). The latter was the only game since the Olympic break.
The common thread for the Lynx against the Liberty this season has been torching what’s otherwise an excellent defense, as Minnesota hit 44.1% from beyond the arc and averaged 83.8 points per game including the Commissioners Cup. Those numbers jumped to 88.7 points per game and 49.3% in the three wins while New York held the Lynx to 67 points and 29.6% from deep (8-for-27) in its lone win.
No one should assume the regular season series preordains the Finals outcome. If you include the Liberty’s 2023 Commissioner’s Cup win, which gave it a 3-2 edge in the series with the Aces, the team that won the regular season series ultimately lost the WNBA Finals six times in the last 10 seasons.
The last two times a team came into the Finals with a multiple-game edge in the regular season like Minnesota has, that team ended up losing the Finals by multiple games. Those teams were the 2020 Aces (swept Storm 2-0 in the regular season, lost Finals 3-0) and the 2021 Mercury (swept Sky 3-0 in the regular season, lost Finals 3-1).
The team that lost the regular season series has also won the Finals four out of the last five seasons (2022 Aces against the Sun is the only exception) and six of the last eight dating back to the Lynx and Sparks’ back-to-back Finals meetings in 2016-17. The team that lost the regular season series won the Finals in each of those years (Los Angeles in 2016, Minnesota in 2017).
The Names to Know
The Lynx may be looking for their fifth title, but all of the starters will be looking to win their first, headlined by sixth-year veteran and 2024 Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier in her first Finals alongside 10-year veteran Kayla McBride and nine-year veteran Courtney Williams, who both have Finals experience.
Collier’s averaging 27.1 points per game in the Lynx’s first seven postseason games, on pace for the second-highest mark in a single playoff run (minimum five games). Only Cappie Pondexter (28.4 in five games in 2010) has put up a higher mark. Phee’s also averaging 9.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists, on pace to join Breanna Stewart (2022) and Lisa Leslie (2001) as the only players with a 20/9/3 postseason (minimum five games).
McBride and Williams both have Finals experience on the losing end. Williams started nine Finals games for the Sun in the 2019 and 2022 Finals, averaging 15.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists while hitting 41.3% from the field. McBride went to the Finals in her final season with the Aces in 2020, averaging 12.0 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists while hitting 42.9% from the field including 8-for-15 from deep.
Bench players Myisha Hines-Allen and Cecilia Zandalasini have each won a WNBA title in their careers. Hines-Allen (11.7 minutes, 4.4 points per game in playoffs) won the 2019 title with the Mystics, whom she’d been with for her first seven seasons before joining the Lynx in August. Zandalasini (9.4 minutes, 2.5 points per game in playoffs) won the 2017 title in the first season of her first stint with the Lynx and rejoined the team this season for her first WNBA campaign since 2018.
One of the Liberty’s presumptive starters, Leonie Fiebich, is a rookie who wasn’t a regular starter a month ago. The other four have a combined 31 games of Finals experience including 16 starts alongside each other in last year’s loss to the Aces.
Breanna Stewart won a pair of titles and a pair of Finals MVP honors with the Storm in 2018 and 2020. She averaged 27.0 points per game on 57.0% from the field including 61.3% from deep in those Finals. It’s now public knowledge that she was mourning the loss of her father-in-law last year during the Finals when she averaged 16.3 points per game on 32.5% from the field, including 3-for-17 in the clinching game, and the Liberty will hope to see Stewie return to her 2018 and 2020 Finals form on the biggest stage.
Jonquel Jones is the Liberty starter with the most Finals experience, playing in 13 games across losing efforts as Courtney Williams’ teammate with the Sun (2019 and 2022) and the Liberty last year. JJ’s teams are 4-2 in Finals games when she scores at least 18 points, but they’re 0-7 when she finishes with 16 or fewer.
Sabrina Ionescu was held to 13 or fewer points in all four games in her first Finals last year and averaged 9.8 points and 5.5 assists per game while hitting 31.6% from the field.
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was probably New York’s best player in last year’s Finals overall and averaged 12.8 points per game on 45.4% from the field, but is unlikely to see anything near the same minutes (35+ in three of four games) as she recovers from July knee surgery (26.1 minutes and 6.0 points per game in the playoffs).
Like the Lynx, the Liberty bring a WNBA champion off the bench in likely future Hall of Famer Courtney Vandersloot (17.5 minutes, 6.7 points per game in the playoffs), who won the 2021 title with the Sky.
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I think the key for NY is Sandy Brondello. Since losing the Commissioner's Cup, she has become much more aggressive and proactive. We're actually seeing cause and effect changes. After the Liberty gave up 27 points off 20 TOs in the Commissioner's Cup, they had the lowest turnover rate in the league for the next 2 or 3 weeks. After the Liberty hoisted up a ridiculous 42 3pt attempts (missing 32) in a loss to Indiana, the next game they only attempted 13, which was the lowest total for NY in six years. Previously, Brondello would let opponents go on 10-0 or 12-0 runs before calling a timeout. Now she mostly lets it go to 4-0 or 6-0 before putting a stop to the other team's momentum.
In the past, Brondello seemed reluctant to make defensive substitutions. I remember a game against Chicago in 2022 when New York had a 1-point lead with seconds left, needing one stop to win. Sandy kept Ionescu, Johannes, and Dangerfield on the floor as her perimeter defenders even though she had Bec Allen, Onyenwere, and Whitcomb on the bench. There were two stoppages in play when she could have made substitutions but didn't. Not surprisingly, NY ended up losing. Now, things have changed. Brondello replaced future Hall of Famer Courtney Vandersloot with unheralded rookie Leonie Fiebich in the starting lineup -- something Old Sandy would never have the nerve to do. Old Sandy wouldn't be imaginative enough to have Stewart bring the ball up court to counter LVA blitzing Ionescu. Nor would she assign Breanna to guard Plum. In the last loss to Minnesota, NY enter the 4th Quarter trailing by 24. Sandy replaced JJ, Sloot, and Laney with Sabally, Fiebich, and Thornton. With 4:21 left, NY had reduced the lead to 8, and they had the ball. Unfortunately, Sabrina was mired in her terrible shooting slump but wouldn't stop chucking. Ionescu started off 4-6, then missed her next 15 shots -- including 6 in the final quarter. Otherwise, NY might have completed the miracle comeback. Nonetheless, Brondello showed a willingness to experiment even if it meant offending her starters. That's something Old Sandy would never do. For 2.5 years, I really disliked Brondello, but I feel much better about the version we see now. Sandy was able to raise her game to match Hammon in the last series. I feel NY has better talent on paper, but Minnesota has been the better team because of coaching. Let's see if Brondello can now raise her game to match Reeve.
Simple formula- Get JJ the ball, defend the 3 and rebound.