The Minnesota Lynx made history Tuesday night, and not the good kind. After rolling through the regular season with a stellar 33-11 record, they became the first No. 1 seed ever to be swept out of the WNBA playoffs by an eighth seed, falling hard to the New York Liberty. This wasn’t just a loss, it was an 87-71 beatdown at the Barclays Center that ended their best-of-three series far too soon, leaving coach Cheryl Reeve with a blunt, almost resigned, message.
A Historic Collapse and a Coach’s Chill Take
Let’s be real, seeing your top-ranked squad get bounced by the lowest seed in the league is brutal. It’s a historic upset, the first time it has ever happened in WNBA playoff history, even if the current format is only a few years old. But Reeve? She’s not dwelling on it, at least not publicly. “Yeah, it sucks,” she said after the game. “We’re not going to focus on s**t like that. It is what it is.” Talk about a cold take for such a fiery ending. The Lynx, who looked completely unstoppable for stretches of the regular season and even won 16 out of 17 games, led for less than three-and-a-half minutes in the *entire postseason*. That’s not just getting beat, that’s barely showing up when it counted.
When Regular Season Dominance Means Nothing
Here’s the kicker: this isn’t a one-off for the Lynx. This team has been a regular season juggernaut for years, only to stumble when the lights get brightest. Last season, they were also the No. 1 seed and got knocked out in the semifinals. Go back to 2024, and they were the No. 2 seed, made it all the way to the WNBA Finals, only to lose to, you guessed it, the Liberty in a grueling seven-game series. Napheesa Collier put it best, via Zone Coverage’s Andrew Dukowitz, when asked why they can’t snag a championship: “I don’t know. I feel like if we knew the answer to that we would translating it over. That’s something that obviously we have to figure it out. We play really well in the regular season, I mean, the game is hard.” She’s not wrong.
This franchise, under Reeve, used to be the gold standard. They won four titles and reached the Finals six times in a seven-year span early in her tenure. But since their last championship in 2017, they’ve only made it back to the Finals once. It’s a tough pill to swallow when you know what this organization is capable of.
Championship or Bust? Reeve Says “Nah.”
You’d think after years of coming up short, especially after such a dominant regular season where they looked like a lock, the internal pressure would be sky-high. Championship or bust, right? Not according to Reeve. She claims that expectation is “just an external thing.” “There wasn’t an expectation internally that, ‘Hey, championship or bust,’” she stated. “I understand the Lynx franchise, because we’ve been successful and we’ve won championships, everyone thinks it’s championship or bust. There’s sometimes when you have that team, and that would be the case that you should feel that way. I have not felt like we’ve had that team over these three years.”
It’s a bold statement, especially with the individual success they had. Olivia Miles, the No. 2 overall pick, absolutely balled out, averaging 19.8 points and six assists per game on her way to Rookie of the Year honors. And Reeve herself won Coach of the Year! They had a great regular season, no doubt. “We became a great regular season team this year,” Reeve simply said. “And we ran into the wrong team.” But for a team that keeps hitting roadblocks when it matters, that explanation might not cut it for fans watching them repeatedly fall short. What changes next offseason to finally get them over the hump? Or will it just be another year of “it is what it is?”
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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