There are few things in life as reliable as Cheryl Reeve coaching the Lynx into the WNBA playoffs.<\/p>\n
Since being hired as the head coach in 2010, Reeve has vacationed during the postseason twice \u2014 once in her debut season and the other in 2022, when All-Star forward Napheesa Collier missed the majority of the season while pregnant. Otherwise, when the leaves are starting to turn in Minnesota, Reeve is presiding over a championship contender.<\/p>\n
The consistency of success makes it easy to take Reeve\u2019s coaching for granted. Despite the Lynx wrapping up the WNBA\u2019s best record in two weeks before season\u2019s end, the Associated Press voted Reeve\u2019s opposition in the first round, Golden State\u2019s Natalie Nakase, for its Coach of the Year award.<\/p>\n
Game 1 of the first-round series with the Valkyries starts at noon Sunday at Target Center.<\/p>\n
What shouldn\u2019t be overlooked about this Lynx season is it represents something nearly unprecedented in basketball. Rarely has a coach in the modern era \u2014 on the men\u2019s or women\u2019s side \u2014 reinvented themselves with the same franchise after the end of one dynasty to rise to the top again.<\/p>\n
Most times, when a coach returns to the peak, it does so with another team the way Phil Jackson did with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, or Brian Agler with the Seattle Storm and Los Angeles Sparks.<\/p>\n
One comparison to Reeve may be former Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who won championships 15 years apart. But he still had Hall of Famer Tim Duncan on the floor for his title runs.\u00a0There are no players left over from Reeve\u2019s Lynx dynasty, four WNBA titles from 2011-17. I<\/p>\n
In fact, after last week\u2019s induction ceremony, four of the starters are in the Naismith Hall of Fame and another, Rebekkah Brunson, is on the coaching staff. Reeve was able to rebuild a championship-level contender around Collier, an MVP contender this season, and a group of veteran players who aren\u2019t likely to someday have busts next to Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen.<\/p>\n
This group, which took the New York Liberty down to the final possession of the WNBA Finals last year, has relied on complimentary skillsets, interconnectedness and Reeve\u2019s complete schematic overhaul from the dynastic days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectations are still the same, but how she goes about things changes throughout the years,\u201d said Whalen, an assistant on Reeve\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n
One way in which Reeve has adapted is by leaning into the modern style of play, with a reliance on ball movement and 3-point shots. This year, the Lynx made the second most 3s per game, hitting the highest percentage (37.8%) of attempts from beyond the arc. They created their looks from deep with an unselfish style, registering assists on 72.6% of field goal makes, second-best in the league.<\/p>\n
During their last championship run in 2017, the Lynx moved the ball effectively, but they ranked eighth of 12 teams in 3-point attempts (16.1).<\/p>\n
The emphasis on ball movement has multiple players posting some of their best career seasons. Collier became only the second player in WNBA history to record a season in which he shot north of 50% from the field, 40% from 3-point range and 90% from the free-throw line. Key starters Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith set career highs in win shares, and guard Kayla McBride finished second in the WNBA in total 3-point makes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the first conversations she had with me was, she said, \u2018We probably don\u2019t have to talk much because I trust in you that you\u2019re going to do the right thing,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat was before I even started training camp. When you have that confidence instilled in you from Day 1, it only helps elevate you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bench players thrived, as well, with Sixth Player of the Year hopeful Natisha Hideman tying her career best in points per game, and forward Jess Shepard leading the league by shooting 63.8% from the field.<\/p>\n
The Lynx\u2019s head coach has also changed with the times.<\/p>\n
When Reeve won her last title with Moore, Augustus, Fowles, Whalen and Brunson, social media was just starting to take hold, and Moore\u2019s shoe deal with Nike was about as far as branding went.\u00a0Now players put much more emphasis on sharing their personal lives with fans. That has been highlighted this year by Williams and Hiedeman\u2019s popular Twitch stream Stud Budz, which was recently featured in Vogue magazine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey keep telling me that Cheryl wasn\u2019t like this before me and (Hiedeman) got here,\u201d Williams said.. \u201cI don\u2019t even really know the Cheryl that they\u2019re talking about because they said Cheryl changed once we got here.\u201d<\/p>\n
McBride, who arrived in 2021 as the dynasty was coming to an end, confirmed that things have changed quite a bit with Reeve\u2019s approach to players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s with the times. The players who are here, it\u2019s a different vibe,\u201d McBride said. \u201cThose first three years she was still very strict from the dynasty times. \u2026That\u2019s not a knock, she\u2019s just opened up. And I think it takes a special type of coach to be able to adjust to the players around you, and our players are different from players she\u2019s coached before.\u201d<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean Reeve has gotten softer when it comes to pushing players on the court, or calling them out after a game. Last week following a loss that meant nothing in the standings, Reeve snarked, \u201cWe haven\u2019t played defense in about a month.\u201d<\/p>\n
But McBride says Reeve wouldn\u2019t have built two squads over separate decades that are competing for championships by going easy on her players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe accountability, it\u2019s kind of a lost art,\u201d McBride said. \u201cIt\u2019s very old school in that she holds everyone to the same standard, it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re the MVP or if you are just coming in as a rookie.\u201d<\/p>\n
To open the postseason, the Lynx face off with expansion Golden State, a team they beat in all four regular-season matchups. Sunday\u2019s opener begins their playoff journey with an aim for Reeve to win another championship outside of the dynasty.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s our anchor, she\u2019s our leader,\u201d McBride said. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really special what she\u2019s doing, and we just want to continue to make it special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: September 13, 2025 at 2:23 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few things in life as reliable as Cheryl Reeve coaching the Lynx into the WNBA playoffs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[5949,1077,3250,99,434],"class_list":["post-154560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-cheryl-reeve","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}