{"id":167183,"date":"2025-09-24T23:54:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T23:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167183\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T23:54:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T23:54:05","slug":"top-seeded-lynx-lament-losing-their-usual-composure-and-letting-mercury-tie-the-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167183\/","title":{"rendered":"Top-seeded Lynx lament losing their usual composure and letting Mercury tie the series"},"content":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 The Minnesota Lynx<\/a> remained in control in the final minute of regulation despite the disappearance of a 20-point lead, having built their advantage back up to five after the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> had tied the game.<\/p>\n

The Lynx still led by three points after Satou Sabally’s putback for the Mercury, having survived the earlier collapse on their home floor and eyeing a closeout of\u00a0Game 2\u00a0of the\u00a0semifinal series\u00a0with their roaring fans anticipating the same.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the top seed in the\u00a0WNBA\u00a0playoffs wasn’t done unraveling.<\/p>\n

Bridget Carleton took the ball to inbound it from the sideline with 46 seconds left in the fourth quarter, but the Mercury had her teammates swarmed. Just as coach Cheryl Reeve screamed for a timeout, the whistle for a 5-second violation was blown. Alyssa Thomas cut the lead to one with a basket in the lane with 25 seconds to go, and the Lynx never fully recovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy timeout was too late. B.C. knows she can always take a timeout,\u201d Reeve said after the 89-83 overtime defeat evened the best-of-five series at one game apiece. “We didn\u2019t get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lynx team that went 20-2 at home in the regular season and won its first three games in the playoffs faltered down the stretch in uncharacteristic fashion under the demanding Reeve, whose standard for defense, discipline with the ball and overall tough-mindedness has contributed to four WNBA championships.<\/p>\n

While the Mercury were on a 12-0 run late in the third quarter that quickly deflated the aforementioned 20-point lead, the Lynx at one point committed four unforced turnovers in a span of 65 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhoenix did a good job at coming out aggressive, but I think we beat ourselves,\u201d star Napheesa Collier said.<\/p>\n

Reeve said she saw some bad body language from \u201cplayers we\u2019re not used to seeing certain looks from\u201d and lamented the lack of hustle and tenacity that could\u2019ve overcome the sloppiness and ultimately preserved a victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust playing our defense and making sure that we don\u2019t have turnovers,\u201d Collier said. \u201cI don\u2019t think our defense was the same in the second half as it was in the first half. We need to get back to taking the easy things away, making their shots hard, and taking care of the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lynx, who were beaten in overtime of the decisive game of the WNBA Finals last year by the New York Liberty, won their last title in 2017. The new Collier-led core flourished ahead of most external expectations last season and picked up where they left off in 2025 by leading the league by a healthy margin for most of the summer and finishing 34-10.<\/p>\n

Now they must play consecutive games in Phoenix \u2014 Game 3 is on Friday and Game 4 is on Sunday \u2014 and win at least once to bring their drive for five back to Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a resilient team. It\u2019s a team that responds,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cObviously they don\u2019t feel great right now, but they\u2019re problem-solvers. Nobody said it was going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 The Minnesota Lynx remained in control in the final minute of regulation despite the disappearance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-167183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}