WNBA Finals pits 'super team' Liberty vs. 'darn good' Lynx
A closer look at the construction of the two clubs set to square off in the WNBA Finals
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts!
Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet?
It doesn’t get much better than this, folks.
The WNBA Finals matchup between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx matches the two teams that were not only the best in the standings this season, but are about as close as you could imagine in most advanced metrics. Both teams shoot the lights out, play incredible defense and have roster flexibility to shapeshift throughout the series.
How each club built its roster to reach this point, however, is quite different.
On Wednesday, Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve talked about trying to build a contender in a world where the Las Vegas Aces and Liberty put together “super teams” with several big-name stars playing together.
“There's more than one way to do this,” Reeve said (via ESPN’s Alexa Philippou). “And so a superteam we are not, but we're a darn good basketball team."
Reeve is certainly right that the Lynx don’t have players with the resumes of Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart, who joined the Liberty last season and led them to a finals appearance. They also don’t have a No. 1 overall pick centerpiece, as the Liberty do with Sabrina Ionescu.
Instead, the Lynx’s roster was built on fit. They brought in experienced players in Alanna Smith, Courtney Williams, Natisha Hiedeman last offseason and then acquired Myisha Hines-Allen at the trade deadline. Paired with a superstar in Napheesa Collier and veteran shooters Kayle McBride and Bridget Carleton, the total turned out to be more than the sum of the parts.
All of these players brought particular skills to the table that brilliantly played off Collier and the style that Reeve decided she wanted this group to play. With Smith playing the center position, they can spread the floor and create space for Collier in the paint in ways that they wouldn’t be able to do with a traditional big. But it wouldn’t work if Smith didn’t shoot effectively from 3-point land and play incredibly tough defense.
Smith gave them both things in spades. She shot 39.8% from deep during the regular season and has made 10 3-pointers on 22 attempts in the playoffs. She also spent the first two series going to battle with two Olympians in Brittney Griner and Alyssa Thomas. She came out with plenty of bruises and hard-nosed performances that kept those two superstars largely in check.
It would be interesting to find out whether Reeve knew that Smith could shoot as well as she has this season. With Chicago in 2023, the Australian forward only shot 29.4% from deep, but in her final season in college at Stanford she was a 39.7% shooter from beyond the arc. I wonder if Reeve thought if she could create wide-open kickouts for Smith that she would make them. Or if Smith surprised everyone when she came out canning deep shots right from the jump.
Smith was the biggest leap-of-faith new player on the team this year. Courtney Williams already had a long track record of being a baller. She had been to a championship series with Connecticut and been an All-Star in Atlanta. You might put her only slightly outside of the “super team” type of player range considering her resume.
But Williams brought more than just a good mid-range shot and on-ball defensive presence. She plays with an intensity and toughness that matches Reeve’s personality. She might also be in the top 10 fastest players with the basketball in her hands. Williams puts defenses instantly on their heels, so when she brings the ball up the floor, opponents are back on their heels instantly preparing for her to either rise-and-fire or drive to the hoop. That has allowed the offense to get started early in the shot clock, giving the perimeter players a chance to run screens, throw multiple passes in and out of the paint and patiently wait for an open available shot.
It can’t be a coincidence that Bridget Carleton and Kayla McBride, like Alanna Smith, put up remarkable 3-point percentages. McBride made her highest percentage from 3-point land since 2019 and the second highest of her career, and Carleton hit 44.4%, her best by nearly eight percentage points over the last three years.
Hiedeman and Hines-Allen coming off the bench have given the Lynx a spark and lineup flexibility. Despite only averaging 15 minutes per game and 4.9 points per game during the regular season, Hideman was prepared for when Reeve called upon her in the last two games of the win over the Sun. She combined for 38 minutes and went 9-for-14 shooting with three rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Hines-Allen didn’t see the floor much against the Sun in the last two games because Connecticut went small with their lineups, but whenever the Lynx need to add a little more sandpaper without losing some scoring touch, she can come in and simulate Smith’s role or play alongside her to form a bruising front court. Hines-Allen also sets a heck of a screen that can kickstart the pick-and-roll game.
Again, it isn’t just a collection of “darn good” players, it’s darn good players who complement each other perfectly and give the head coach a lot of different buttons to push.
But we also have to consider this when talking about the Lynx as the scrappy darn-good team: They either have the second or third-best player in the world in Napheesa Collier. Collier finished third in win shares this year only behind Wilson and Breanna Stewart, and she went full legend mode against the Sun, shooting 60.0% with 27.3 points and 11.7 rebounds per game over the final three games of the series. Nobody makes the WNBA Finals without games like that from their best player.
While the darn-good squad won three out of their four matchups with the Liberty this year, including the Commissioner’s Cup championship, there is no team that matches up better against Minnesota than New York.
In the Lynx’s series against Connecticut, the Sun had trouble matching Minnesota shot-for-shot, outside of Game 4, where they shot over 53%. But when push came to shove, the Sun just didn’t have enough offensive firepower to keep up. The Liberty have that firepower. This year New York was first in offensive rating, second in points per game, third in field-goal percentage, third in assisted shot rate and allowed the fewest opponent blocks and steals per game.
New York’s superstars are capable of putting up massive numbers on any given night. This season Ionescu scored 20+ points on 16 occasions; Stewart also did it in 16 games, and Jones scored 20+ eight times. All three can stretch the floor. Stewart and Jones are dominant at the basket. Ionescu has been blazing hot from 3-point land, making 46.5% in the postseason.
These players are not just good offensively, especially Stewart, who makes a case every year for Defensive Player of the Year. It stands to reason that the Liberty will try to stick Stewart on Collier as much as they can. During the regular season, the Liberty were good this year at limiting Collier’s shot attempts. She only took 13 shots in the Commissioner’s Cup final and finished with 42 in the three other games (14 per game). Her average shots per game is over 16 for the last two seasons. Collier also only averaged 16.0 points per game against the Liberty in the three regular season games, which was her lowest against any team (she had 21 in the Commissioner’s Cup, which doesn’t count toward regular season stats).
There’s another important point to be made about the Liberty: They aren’t just a three-player team. They can play the matchup game with anybody. Leonie Fiebich has brought a new dimension when it comes to spreading the floor, and Courtney Vandersloot is a tough matchup for most second units. They can turn into an incredibly big and tough team when they use Kayla Thornton or Nyara Sabally.
It will be worth watching how Betnijah Laney-Hamilton bounces back from a tough series against the Aces. After scoring 11.8 points per game this season, she failed to reach double digits in four games versus Las Vegas. When she gets hot, the Liberty are very difficult to beat. She shot over 40% from 3-point range and added 3.3 assists per game.
While the two teams match up about as close as two teams you’ll ever find on paper, the biggest deciding factor is likely to be Ionescu’s shooting. During her career, the Liberty have won eight out of nine playoff games in which Ionescu has shot at least 45% from the field. When she’s under 45%, they are 4-7 and when she’s under 33% they have lost all four times.
What makes her shooting such an X-Factor is that her accuracy from the floor fluctuated this year. She was hot to start the season, faded after the Olympic break and then came back very strong in the playoffs, going 5-for-8 from beyond the arc in the closeout game against the Aces and putting up 20-plus points in three of the four games.
Across New York’s four meetings with Minnesota this year,, Ionescu shot 34.2% from the field and just 17.9% (7-for-39) from 3-point range. The Lynx were the best team in the WNBA in terms of 3-point percentage allowed.
In the end, whether you’re darn good or super, the Lynx and Liberty both have a case for being deserving WNBA champions. They have deep teams, top scorers, elite defenders, top coaches and top fan bases that are bound to make for difficult atmospheres for the visiting team. This series has instant classic written all over it.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts!
Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet?