The WNBA playoffs tip off Sunday and one thing is clear: Minnesota worked fiercely to make it back for the postseason.
They’ve led with the best record in the league for nearly the entire season, finishing 34-10. That hustle landed them as the number-one seed entering playoffs, a position they secured several games before the end of season.
Their first faceoff is on Sunday at Target Center in Minneapolis at 12 p.m. against the Golden State Valkyries, who rallied for 8th seed in their inaugural season.
The two teams just saw each other Thursday for their final game of the regular season, where the Lynx set a franchise record for wins.
Napheesa Collier, favored for MVP, also ended on a season-high: shooting 53 percent from the field, 40.3 percent from 3-point range and 91 percent from the free-throw line, joining Elena Delle Donne in 2019 as the only players in WNBA history to have a 50/40/90 season. This comes after an ankle injury kept her from seven games last month.
The Lynx enter playoffs with the same starters who brought them to the finals last year. Collier is joined in the starting lineup by Courtney Williams, Kayla McBride, Alanna Smith and Bridget Carleton. Other than McBride's four-game hiatus at the beginning of the season, they have rarely been without each other.
But the team's talent doesn’t stop there. The Lynx re-signed Jessica Shepard for the 2025 season, whom Collier and Coach Cheryl Reeve both see as a worthy contestant for the Sixth Player of the Year award.
In her second season with the Lynx, guard Natisha Hiedeman played in every game this season and last, and she has continued to establish herself as a leader.
Additionally, the Lynx acquired DiJonai Carrington last month from the Dallas Wings, a former teammate of Hiedeman at Connecticut. She eased into the team dynamic seamlessly, being a force for rebounds and assists before a shoulder injury made her miss the last four regular season games.
The playoff journey ahead
After the team’s controversial loss to the New York Liberty during last year’s finals, the Lynx have fought to make it back.
“We kind of had an idea of what we were capable of, and we know that we are a championship-caliber team," Collier said. “We want to end it a little happier than last year.”
This first series is best-of-three, which means there is a lot on the line for the first game; there’s less wiggle room to regain the series lead if things take a turn.
Additionally, there is pressure for home teams to win the series’ first game, otherwise it requires an away game win in order to claw yourself to the third tie-breaking game of the series and stay in the playoffs.
Alongside Minnesota’s great record, they were nearly unstoppable in Minnesota, with a home record of 20-2 this season.
However, the Lynx secured the number one seed last week, and since then, the games have carried less weight in the standings than they have for other teams who were still fighting for playoff position, running the risk of losing momentum entering the playoffs, something Coach Cheryl Reeve wasn’t going to let happen.
"You can't take your foot off the pedal. You can't have slippage. And so all those things will be on our minds each day,” Reeve said.
The W’s intensity on and off the court
For the WNBA as a whole, the league is headed into playoffs at new heights — again. This season has seen record-breaking attendance and viewership.
Front Office Sports reported earlier this week that the WNBA passed 3 million total attendees for its regular-season games Sunday. That came just three weeks after breaking its regular-season attendance record of 2.36 million set in 2002.
The league’s popularity has grown alongside its players’ unmatched talent. Over the past two WNBA seasons alone, 30 individual records have been made.
Off the court, this season has seen new hype surrounding the players and their lives, as well.
Williams and Hiedeman’s stream “StudBudz” went viral since they first started it in June.
In many ways, it has reinvented what being a professional athlete means, through building even more personal and fun connections to their fans. It also has allowed them and other players to show a different side of their personality that isn’t always seen on the court.
“I think it was dope just for everybody to see, like, we really are a community. The gay community, the girlie community, W community — and we show each other love all the time,” Williams said after a days-long stream to celebrate All Star weekend.
Currently, the stream has 79k followers.
The Lynx play the Valkyries at Target Center on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 12 p.m. It can be streamed on ESPN.
