WNBA: Minnesota Lynx win Commissioner's Cup for first time after powering past New York Liberty 'super-team'
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Published 26/06/2024 at 08:31 GMT
Minnesota Lynx delivered a statement of intent after a pulsating 94-89 victory over New York Liberty. Napheesa Collier described the Lynx as the "most talented" team she has played in after scoring 21 points. The Commissioner's Cup sees each team play five regular-season games which decide their place in the cup standings, with all matches played across a two-week period in June.
The Minnesota Lynx celebrate winning the Commissioner's Cup.
Image credit: Getty Images
Minnesota Lynx won the WNBA Commissioner's Cup for the first time after a 94-89 victory over New York Liberty on Tuesday evening.
Bridget Carleton and Napheesa Collier were the stars of the show after scoring 23 and 21 points respectively, on a landmark evening for the side at Barclays Center in New York.
The Liberty and Las Vegas Aces largely dominated the WNBA landscape in 2023 after meeting in the Commissioner's Cup and the WNBA Finals, with New York taking the former and Vegas the latter.
The enormity of the 2024 victory for Minnesota was not lost on their coach, Cheryl Reeve, who was delighted with the achievement.
She said in quotes published by ESPN: "You got to talk about us now, you've got no choice.
"We just beat a super-team. You know how hard that is to do? Because you guys love your super-teams. That's all you want to talk about. But we just beat a super-team. Let's talk about it."
Collier waxed lyrical about Minnesota’s victory and spoke about how much enjoyment she gets from playing in this team.
"We have a lot of offensive threats, but on defence, we're so solid," she explained.
"That's why it's so hard to play against us. Our aggressiveness, our willingness to sell out on anything [because] we have each other's backs.
"This is the most talented, most fun team I've been on since I've been here. We want to build on this, we don't want to peak here. We want to achieve bigger things than this at the end of the season."
Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu were the top scorers for New York, with the former taking 24 points and 11 rebounds, and the latter with 23 points and 10 rebounds.
Despite her exploits on the night, Stewart was magnanimous in defeat and explained that New York could have no complaints following the result.
“I think that they executed better than us and that’s it, both ends of the floor,” Stewart said. “We weren’t able to get anything we wanted. Twenty-one turnovers is never going to win the game.”
It was an emotional night for Courtney Vandersloot, after making her first appearance since June 4. Her absence was due to spending time with her mother, who passed away two weeks ago.
Ionescu paid tribute to her teammate and said: “Shows a lot about who she is and how much she cares about being a part of this team.
“Wanting to sacrifice to suit up and be available to us. Credit to her, it's so tough to do what she's doing.”
- - -
discovery+ is the streaming home of the Olympic Games, and the only place you can watch every moment of Paris 2024 this summer.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement