Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said her team may not have the roster to win in the postseason after the New York Liberty swept the top-seeded Lynx out of the first round of the 2026 WNBA playoffs. The Lynx playoff exit was sealed Tuesday, Sept. 29, with an 87-71 loss in Game 2 at Barclays Center, making Minnesota the first No. 1 seed in league history to be swept in an opening series.
The No. 8-seeded Liberty, who won Game 1 in Minnesota on Sunday behind 34 points and 12 rebounds from Breanna Stewart, closed out the best-of-three series with little drama. For a franchise that has spent three straight seasons near the top of the standings, the result raised a blunt question that Reeve answered herself.
Reeve: “Maybe we don’t quite have the right group”
Speaking after the elimination, Reeve, who is both head coach and president of basketball operations, did not frame the loss as bad luck. According to ESPN’s Alexa Philippou, she said:
“I have not felt like we’ve had that team over these three years, and so what we’re doing is sort of maybe exceeding expectations in the regular season, and then when it comes playoffs, maybe we don’t quite have the right group to be effective.”
She also offered a shorter version of the same idea: “We became a great regular-season team this year, and we ran into the wrong team.”
Reeve put the responsibility on herself, in both of her jobs. “I have to help us. I have to get us the appropriate help to do it, make the hard decisions to do that. I couldn’t get us there in this series, and so it’s on me,” she said, adding, “I just know we have some work to do.”
A historic Lynx playoff exit for a No. 1 seed
The numbers make the collapse stand out. Minnesota finished 33-11 and atop the league standings for a second consecutive year, theScore reported, and was 31-7 as late as August, per ESPN. Reeve won her fifth Coach of the Year award this season, and rookie guard Olivia Miles was a unanimous Rookie of the Year pick.
None of that carried over. ESPN noted that the 87-71 defeat gave the Lynx back-to-back playoff losses by 15 or more points for the first time in franchise history. In Game 2, Jonquel Jones posted 21 points and 13 rebounds and Stewart added 21 points, five rebounds and four assists for New York. Kayla McBride led Minnesota with 14 points.
A rookie season that ended in a tough series
Miles, the face of Minnesota’s youth movement, struggled against the Liberty. ESPN tallied 16 points, two assists, five turnovers and seven fouls for her across the two games. Her own diagnosis matched her coach’s sense that something was missing when the pressure rose: “You could tell for a lot of us that we’re playing tight and stressed and afraid of losing instead of trying to win.”
Three seasons, three playoff stumbles
Reeve’s “three years” comment refers to a pattern that has frustrated Minnesota fans. Each recent season has followed a similar arc:
- 2024: The Lynx reached the WNBA Finals and lost to the Liberty in five games. ESPN described Minnesota as one controversial foul call away from winning the deciding Game 5 and a fifth championship.
- 2025: Minnesota again posted a dominant regular season, then fell to the Phoenix Mercury in the semifinals, according to theScore.
- 2026: A league-best record ended with a 0-2 first-round sweep by the eighth seed.
Stewart, for her part, said the Liberty had their own painful memory in mind. ESPN reported that New York carried the lesson of last year’s first-round series, when they lost badly at home in Game 2 before losing Game 3, into this matchup.
Napheesa Collier free agency looms over the offseason
The bigger question now is what Reeve’s “hard decisions” will look like. The most important one may not be hers to make. ESPN reported that star forward Napheesa Collier “will hit free agency and cannot be cored by the team,” meaning Minnesota cannot use the core designation to restrict her movement. ESPN added that Collier “has been noncommittal when asked about her desire to stay with Minnesota beyond this year.”
The rest of the core is locked in for now. According to ESPN, Courtney Williams, McBride and Natasha Howard are all under contract through 2027, and Miles is still on her rookie deal. That leaves Reeve with a familiar group around a young guard, plus a looming decision from the franchise’s best player.
What Reeve’s dual role means for the rebuild
Because Reeve runs both the bench and the front office, there is no separate general manager to absorb blame or drive change. Her comments after the Lynx playoff exit suggested she understands that. She described the task as getting the team “the appropriate help,” which points to roster moves, while theScore reported she also committed to improving the coaching approach for postseason games.
For the WNBA, the sweep is another reminder that regular-season dominance guarantees little in October, a league where star power and pressure, as seen in coverage of Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, often decide the story. For Minnesota, the message from its coach is simple: the record was real, but the roster, by her own admission, was not built to finish the job.
The Liberty, meanwhile, became the first team to reach the 2026 WNBA semifinals. The Lynx head into an offseason where the Collier decision will likely shape everything else.
