As the confetti starts to fall and the crowd begins to celebrate in Barclays, the Minnesota Lynx escape out of the arena after falling in Game 5 of the Finals.
Minnesota was seconds away from winning the championship on the road until a last-minute foul was called on the team that put the Liberty at the foul line to force overtime. Coach Cheryl Reeve was irate about the call. She believed that there was no foul and overtime did not need to happen for a team to win the title.
She also points out that the refs were unfair in this game and sabotaged her team winning their fifth title in franchise history. After watching all five games of the series, every game was physical and the losing team in each game would blame the refs because of the officiating.
“The Lynx can call Game 5 as stolen but I think the team still could have battled in overtime for five minutes to win the title instead they struggled and were not locked in. The foul threw everyone off in the game in overtime. The players did not feel like winning and handed the Liberty their first title.”
People on social media, like Lebron James, argued that the foul should by the players. League office never have been called and that the game should have been deciding has continued to become a problem for every WNBA team since 2020, with many technical fouls called in consecutive years.
The league has yet to address the issue for players and coaches to be given refs that play fair and don’t cheat. Coach Reeve thinks the league should add a third party of officials that can voice the call instead of the referees’ viewing tapes on the court.
This finals series is not the first time Coach Reeve’s team were robbed of winning a championship. In 2016, the Lynx were on the hunt to win their fourth title and become the third team to win back-to-back against Los Angeles. The team led by one point in game 5 with seconds away from winning until former Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike scored the putback to give the Sparks the lead.
Reeve acknowledged that the shot cost the team winning the title and a shot clock violation should have been called. The Lynx eventually got redemption the next year against the Sparks and won the title.
” Reeve’s fourteen years with the franchise has prepared her teams to bounce back from finals losses and win a title the next year. This year’s Lynx have learned from the experience of playing in the finals to possibly bringing in another one soon.”
The positive for this Lynx team is that they played a really good season to finish as a top two team in the league when they were picked to finish in the middle of the standings. The Lynx was one of the best defensive team in the league holding opponents below their average and shot the three at a high percentage.
Naphessa Collier, Bridget Carleton, Alanna Smith, Courtney Williams, and Kayla Mcbride all averaged career numbers this season and Reeve has built a good core that will give the franchise a title in the future. The Lynx bench group was great during the regular season but could have been used more against New York’s depth.
The Lynx owned the regular series against New York 2-1 and defeated them for the Commissioner’s Cup at a neutral site which gave them a hardware to take back to Minnesota.
The team should not take a game that didn’t go their way seriously and be able to learn from the experience to grow into next season. Not every team is going to win and sometimes teams lose which is why this was not the Lynx’s year. The foul was called and there is nothing that can be changed.
