NEW YORK — Welcome to Basketball Insider, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. We have a treat coming your way on Thursday, with a live podcast from BIG EAST Media Day. Hear from Geno Auriemma, Sarah Strong, Mya Moore, Tony Bozzella and new commissioner Tim Brosnan, among many others.
Basketball Insider
But the biggest drama in New York this week happened Tuesday night at Barclays Center, where the New York Liberty defeated the Minnesota Lynx, 87-71 to advance to the WNBA semifinals.
Such is life in the first round of the 2026 WNBA playoffs that the Lynx, even by virtue of winning 75% of their games, were rewarded with a chance to host Breanna Stewart as she channeled her playoff best, and headed to New York in need of a win simply to continue its season.
In a league where the clear line between playoff teams and those who missed the postseason has never been more defined, the resulting chaos has turned every game — especially in three-game series — into a potential season-shifter.
Accordingly, no one I spoke to around the league seemed to have a theory of exactly how it would turn out when the 2024 champions took on the best team in each of the past regular seasons.
Even Cheryl Reeve herself, fresh off winning her fifth Coach of the Year Award (when she won her first, Olivia Miles was eight years old), seemed uncertain about how it would all go. Back in 2024, when the Lynx arrived in Connecticut in need of a Game 3 win to take back home court advantage, she was direct with us — she needed more from Naphessa Collier. Collier delivered.
So I asked her, after Collier tallied a quiet 12 points in Sunday’s loss, if she hoped for the same. Reeve allowed that the 2024 Sun were a very different team — granted — then said this:
“But a different space for Phee, to be honest with you.”
A shorthand way to think of this: New York is bigger than Minnesota. So the Lynx needed to play faster, more aggressively. Reeve repeated the word assertive like a mantra throughout pregame presser.
This, too, was telling: “I am fully confident you’re going to see a very assertive Napheesa Collier. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but she is going to be assertive.”
Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast and Women’s Sports Daily
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women’s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women’s sports news and analysis. Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to podcasts, and make sure to subscribe!
She was, taking the first shot of the night, but the Lynx suffered from playing most of the first half on the back foot. It is possible to outwork and outrun size. When New York is the biggest and fastest and most active of the two teams, they are impossible to beat.
“There always comes a moment in the season where it’s like: be who you are,” Stewart told us, calmly dissecting
The series has brought into sharp relief that the very alchemy that won Reeve her latest coaching honors — lifting a team whose star missed half the season and was led by a rookie to the top of the league — did not solve the identity crisis the Lynx now face.
Miles is to be forgiven for looking like she was playing in her first playoff games, since that’s exactly what she did this week. A mournful Miles told reporters after the game that she’d learn from this, and felt as if she’d let her teammates down — never mind that her brilliance brought Minnesota to this moment in the first place. But to advance, the Lynx needed the brilliance of regular-season Miles, and when that was slow to come, Collier was not yet at the level she played prior to her injury, which was nothing less than an all-WNBA performer herself.
Reeve wanted “patience in transition” from her team to convert more turnovers into points. Instead, by halftime, the Lynx had forced just four turnovers total, and collected zero points from them.
As for the Liberty, the vision of what New York could play like, if healthy, was on display all night long, as if to refute the idea that Sunday’s win was a fluke. Only Courtney Williams, playing in her 44th playoff game over eight seasons, brought the requisite level of speed and intentionality required to win a road game in the postseason against a team as talented as the Liberty.
New York is no one-trick pony. Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones were critical to Tuesday night’s win. But Stewart never stopped, never slowed, and she inspired her team to reach another level in a way I haven’t seen since the Indiana Fever of Tamika Catchings.
“All season now, she’s been in her bag,” Rebecca Allen told me following the game. “But right now, I think we’re seeing this other level of Stewie, and it’s just cool to be a part of… I didn’t think Minnesota could come up with a defensive plan against her.”
Her rookie coach, Chris DeMarco, put it this way: “She gives her teammates confidence, and that’s the best part about her. Outside of what you see, just from a skill standpoint, is that I think everyone can feel when she’s on the floor the impact that she has.”
One of many examples: Miles fouled Stewart as she attacked the rim, almost out of self defense, Stewart the aggressor. Miles hit her in the eye and Stewart fell to the floor. After composing herself, Stewart got up, brushed away Miles as she came over to see if she’s okay, did the same with a trainer and implored the crowd not to lose focus, the cheers rising in time with her arms waving in the air.
Help shape what’s next for The IX Sports! Take our short reader survey:
Stewart did not come out of the game. Not for a second.
“Obviously, it was going to be the idea for this entire series,” Stewart told me when I asked her how that happened. “…because 1-1-1 is such a dangerous series, we wanted to control what we could control. So if that means me playing 40 minutes, I’m going to do that so we get the job done.”
She did. And New York did. They may be the eight seed, but the Liberty have decided to be who they are, and no one is going to want to face them now.
This week in women’s basketball
Alexa Philippou takes a look at whether the Liberty can win it all.
Emma Baccellieri goes long on Cheryl Reeve.
Joyce Bassett looks at the WNBA playoffs as a whole.
The Chicago Sky still don’t have a practice facility!
Candace Buckner talks Mystics.
Maggie Hendricks with a macro look at the Sky’s season.
And don’t miss Amanda Lucci on Marine Johannes.
Five at The IX: Breanna Stewart
Soccer: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tennis: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Basketball: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Softball: Maren Angus-Coombs, @Maren-Angus, The IX Sports
Golf: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Hockey: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Gymnastics: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer
