Down seven at halftime, the Lynx communicated and came together to shut down the Mercury in the second half of the semifinal series.
MINNEAPOLIS — With less than two minutes left Sunday in the Minnesota Lynx’s Game 1 semifinal win over the Phoenix Mercury, Courtney Williams dished the ball to Maria Kliundikova, who quickly made a jumpshot to put Minnesota up 13. The more than 10,000 fans erupted as the Lynx eventually sealed an 82-69 victory in the best-of-five series.
The Lynx are now one game closer to returning to the WNBA Finals. The Target Center, full of fans with pink wigs and pink hair to emulate Williams’ bright pink hair, was raucous in support of its team. But the win was not as easy as it may have seemed.
Phoenix led 47-40 at the half. Alyssa Thomas, who finished third in MVP voting, had 16 points. The Lynx were getting exploited in the paint, with the Mercury scoring 42 of their points in the post. Minnesota needed to come up with something to stop Thomas.
Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve asked her team what it needed to do differently. She didn’t want to tell her players what needed to be different. She wanted to collaborate and problem solve. Williams spoke up.
“She was a part of the conversation at halftime,” Reeve said. “And she's like, you know, ‘Can we try this? Can we do this?’ She put her money where her mouth was and tried to change things for us and make things a little more difficult [for Phoenix.]”
Williams finished the game with 23 points, five steals, seven assists and eight rebounds. Kayla McBride added 21 points, and Napheesa Collier had 18. The halftime talk, which kept the Lynx in their locker room much longer than the Mercury were in theirs, clearly made a difference.
Thomas and Satou Sabally were held to two points each in the second half as the Mercury shot 25% from the field. It turns out talking through problems and working together to solve them even works on the basketball court.
“I think when you got players that's going off, you got to come in at halftime and throw out ideas and throw out different things. So then we do a good job of just adjusting,” Williams said.
A big part of the Lynx’s success is how they have different players who can take over on different nights. Quite often, it’s Collier, who finished second in MVP voting. When it’s Williams, her teammates will often feed off her.
“When she's out there hooping and confident, it's contagious," McBride said. “It just becomes a lot of fun out there playing the game within the game.”
The two teams took different paths to the semifinals. With a regular-season record of 34-10, Minnesota earned the No. 1 seed and was the only team that swept its opponent in the first round, defeating the Golden State Valkyries in two games. Coming in as the fourth seed, Phoenix played a bruising first-round series with the New York Liberty. The Mercury had less than 48 hours between playoff rounds, and that time included travel from Arizona to Minnesota. Still, Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said fatigue isn’t really something the team has time to think about.
“We got a group that's well-conditioned and excited. Maybe physical fatigue, mental fatigue, but we don't have time to worry about it again. I thought we played three really good quarters, and then they just … they just turned it up in the fourth quarter,” Tibbetts said.
For the Lynx, they find motivation in each other. The Lynx came close to winning the title in 2024, losing the WNBA Finals in five games to the New York Liberty. The bulk of the team came back for 2025, so this is a team that knows each other well.
“We operate on the power of friendship. We won games on the power of friendship. I think it feels like we go out there and play for each other. When one person goes down, you have their back all the time,” Collier said pregame.
Reeve has coached the Lynx since 2010 and has led the franchise to four WNBA titles. She said what impresses her the most about this team is how it solves problems more than it points fingers.
“So think about the worst moments of the game for us, which was most of the first half. You didn't go back to the locker room with people blaming now. They went right into listening and like, ‘What can we do together? Who needs to do what?’” Reeve said.
The Mercury’s core is in its first playoff run together. The team underwent a major makeover after Diana Taurasi retired and Brittney Griner signed with the Atlanta Dream. Though Kahleah Copper and Tibbetts were already in place, Phoenix added Thomas and Sabally in the offseason. That core helped the Mercury reach these semifinals, but it’ll need to make changes to get a win on the road and head to Phoenix with a chance to win the series.
Game 2 is 7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday in Minneapolis.
Category: General Sports
