The New York Liberty hit 12 of their 24 shots from the field in the first quarter of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Thursday to help them run out to a 13-point advantage through 10 minutes of basketball.
Then – as it did all season – the Lynx defense sunk its teeth in.
Minnesota forced what was the best offense all season to go 22 for 66 from the field over the game’s final 35 minutes en route to a thrilling overtime victory.
“We’re a better team than what we showed,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said.
Just maybe not against Minnesota.
Frankly, that’s exactly the offense New York has displayed all season against the Lynx. The high-powered Liberty have been consistently humbled by what’s now clearly the league’s top defensive team.
For the game, New York shot 37.8% from the field Thursday. That marked its fourth-worst shooting performance of the season. A trend has formed. Four of New York’s eight-worst shooting games in 2024 have come against Minnesota. In each of those four contests, New York shot no better than 39.1% from the floor.
Even in the lone “outlier” – the Commissioner’s Cup final, won by Minnesota – the Liberty shot 41.4% from the floor, still well below the team’s season average of 44.8%.
New York can’t find good shots against Minnesota. And it doesn’t seem as though the Liberty have a great solution for that issue.
Brondello noted Minnesota simply “lifted up the energy” after Thursday’s opening frame.
“They out-hustled us,” she said.
That caused New York to, in the coach’s eyes, force action. The Liberty stopped moving the ball as well. They couldn’t get downhill with the ball and then they missed shots.
All of that was a result of Minnesota’s defensive pressure. When teams get uncomfortable, they often deviate from the plan. And rarely in basketball does that result in good offense.
“I think they took us out of what we wanted to run. They were really aggressive. They’re blowing up stuff. We couldn’t get clear passes,” Brondello said. “We tried to go downhill, and then they’d stunt and get back and we just got a little bit stagnant. I thought we were slow.”
It’s hard to act quickly when you’re out of rhythm and not sure what to do next. Eventually everything devolves into Breanna Stewart trying to go one on one at the best defensive player in the world. Napheesa Collier. The nation saw how that didn’t go went for New York down the stretch on Thursday.
The Lynx have pushed the Liberty into that mode on countless occasions this season. Minnesota’s physicality isn’t something to which everyone can adjust and play through. The Liberty – through five games this season – appear ill-equipped to handle it, regardless of how much talent they can trot onto the floor in any given lineup.
Whether that can be changed within a best-of-5 series remains to be seen.
“Defensively, they executed better than us,” Brondello said. “That’s what it came down to.”
