Lynx's league-best season ends with historic first-round exit

NEW YORK — The Lynx’s 2026 season was one of overperforming, then falling short of, expectations.

First, they watched much of a deep 2025 roster turn over this offseason through free agency and the expansion draft. They knew star Napheesa Collier would miss significant time — it ended up being 27 games — recovering from two ankle surgeries.

Plenty hinged on the play of rookie point guard Olivia Miles, the No. 2 pick in the draft.

Last year’s Lynx squad, which strung together a league-best regular season record, was decimated. “I didn’t like to hear that [word] at the time, but it was true,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said before this year’s playoffs.

If the team could stay in the hunt for the playoffs until Collier returned, then the Lynx would have a shot, for the third consecutive season, to chase the franchise’s fifth title, and its first since 2017.

Things started clicking. There was a buzzing synergy, even without Collier, their two-time MVP runner-up. The Lynx knew Miles would be good, but not that good, that quickly. The experience of the rest of the starting five was steady and well-balanced, taking turns putting the team on their backs across confidence-building win streaks.

The Lynx climbed toward the top of the WNBA standings by June, and kept sole possession of the No. 1 seed from mid-July to the end of the regular season, even with a late skid.

Then they ran into the New York Liberty.

The Lynx were swept in the best-of-three, first-round series by eighth-seeded New York, becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose in the opening round of playoffs since the league moved away from first-round byes for top seeds in 2022.

In Game 2 Tuesday, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Lynx never led and were eliminated with a 87-71 loss.

The Liberty dominated the offensive glass and got out in transition to build a 49-37 lead at half. While a Lynx lineup with Aari McDonald and Nia Brodie off the bench cut New York’s lead to as few as nine late in the third quarter, the Liberty buried daggers from 3-point range to squash any Lynx momentum.

Miles, announced as the unanimous Rookie of the Year on Monday, played just 17 minutes, and none in the fourth quarter after shooting 1 for 8 from the field. Natasha Howard played just 16 minutes, with two points. What had worked most of the season for the Lynx didn’t against New York.

Courtney Williams led the Lynx with 18 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Collier added 14 points, seven boards. Kayla McBride scored 14 as the Lynx shot just 38.2%.

After those three captains came within seconds of the 2024 WNBA title against top-seeded New York, then fell in the semifinals to Phoenix in 2025 with Collier sidelined, this marks the third consecutive season a Lynx team with title aspirations will leave feeling like something’s left on the table.

The first-round exit wasn’t entirely sudden, even if the whiplash of a best-of-three, first-round series makes it feel jarring. The Lynx lost Game 1 at home 91-75 behind a dominant Breanna Stewart performance, and then they were on the road, on the brink of elimination, less than a week after their 33-11 regular season ended.

Reeve has repeatedly pointed to July 3 — their first of four losses to the Liberty this year— as a date when the Lynx took a downturn. She’s noted that nothing in particular happened on July 3, but analytically, it was an inflection point.

After that point, the Lynx’s offensive rating ranked fourth-best in the league, and their defensive rating seventh. Defensive connectivity was the first thing players repeated as a sticking point. Then, the offense got “sticky,” in their words.

Still, after that, the Lynx reached some of their highest points of the season. Collier returned on July 22, and early in August, the Lynx picked up back-to-back home wins over Las Vegas and Dallas, then swept a four-game road trip that had the team grinding against playoff-bound opponents.

But then the Lynx lost four of their last six games to end the regular season. A 17-day break for the FIBA World Cup made that stretch feel even longer.

Perhaps any other first-round matchup would have been more forgiving. But New York is a team with the size and playoff experience to trouble the Lynx. They were the tallest team in the postseason, and had their “Big Three” of Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu to smooth the edges of a sometimes-underwhelming regular season.

Reeve acknowledged the reality of the Lynx’s draw before Game 2 in Brooklyn.

“Matchups are a real thing when you get to the playoffs, and we’re still navigating figuring out our matchup with New York,” Reeve said. “We didn’t necessarily put our best foot forward [in Game 1].”

And that’s how Minnesota found itself on the wrong side of history. Miles never found footing against the Liberty, facing towering rim protection. She recorded just two assists across both games.

Reeve charged the veteran starters to “hold” Miles — “We have four veterans in a starting lineup. It’s about them,” Reeve said pregame — but none of the vets managed dominant performances in either matchup, either.

The Lynx finished the season losing six of their last eight games, and without winning a playoff game for the first time since they missed the postseason in 2022.

Before Game 2, Reeve was asked about her relationship with pressure, and to what extent she felt it, in a season like this.

“I’m already in the Hall of Fame. I feel no pressure,” Reeve said. “Not that my goal in life was to be in the Hall of Fame, but I’ve, quote, ‘run my race,’ and now I just want to be the best version of myself for the players that we have now. So I don’t feel pressure. The only pressure I feel is to be great for them. That’s all I want. I want to see them happy.”

This offseason, the Lynx’s biggest question mark is Collier, who is an unrestricted free agent after finishing out her one-year, $1.4 million supermax contract.

Minus Miles, who is on a four-year rookie contract, the others in the Lynx’s top rotation (Howard, McBride, Williams and Nia Coffey) are on two-year deals. Maya Caldwell is a restricted free agent.

The Lynx ran it back with most of their 2024 roster in 2025. They had a better regular season, but a shorter postseason, abbreviated with Collier’s injury. Then, they had no choice but to split up as last offseason’s free agency shook up the league.

This offseason, Collier will be in control of her destiny, but the Lynx will, largely, be in control of the rest.

They’ve proved they can climb the mountain, again and again. But when it comes to the postseason, they’re still looking to find their way back to the summit.

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