Down 18, ‘mentally tough’ Lynx stun Liberty in G1

NEW YORK — Two-time Finals MVP Breanna Stewart missed a driving layup as the final buzzer sounded in overtime Thursday night, and the Barclays Center crowd of 17,732 was stunned.

In one of the most thrilling WNBA playoff games in recent memory, the No. 2-seeded Minnesota Lynx overcame the improbable, erasing a second-quarter 18-point deficit — and a 15-point deficit with 5:20 to go — to take Game 1 of the Finals 95-93 in overtime.

Instead of No. 1-seeded New York fully capitalizing on home-court advantage — the Liberty hadn’t lost in Brooklyn all postseason before Thursday — it was the Lynx who celebrated on the Barclays floor, with Courtney Williams flexing as she left the court and shouting, “Two more.”

The 18-point Lynx comeback was tied for the largest in Finals history, but before Thursday, WNBA teams were 0-183 across postseason play when trailing by 15 or more points in the final five minutes of regulation. When a Betnijah Laney-Hamilton 3-pointer with 5:20 remaining gave New York an 81-66 edge, ESPN Analytics projected the Liberty for a 99.2% win probability.

“I think it defines our team in terms of being able to get through difficult times,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said of the comeback. “That’s what we are talking about: You have to be mentally tough and resilient. You have to look inward and not blame other people, and give each other confidence. And we were that team. Thrilled that we could hang in there.”

Stewart, who is hoping to lead the Liberty to the franchise’s first championship, said they would take the loss “on the chin.”

“This is a series,” she said. “We wanted to really win, obviously, for home court. But the beauty is, we have another game on Sunday and we’ll be ready.”

Minnesota improved to 4-1 against New York this year and is two wins away from clinching its first championship since 2017 and fifth overall. And in snagging a road win in such dramatic fashion to open the championship series, the Lynx made their biggest statement yet that even if few expected them to be in the Finals before the season, they certainly belong there now.

The game was defined by big momentum swings. New York rolled early, jumping ahead 32-19 after the first quarter and leading by as many as 18 in the second, marking Minnesota’s largest deficit of the postseason. The Lynx looked more like themselves on both ends as the game went on, managing to close the gap to 44-36 at the half.

“We know it’s a long series,” Reeve said. “Nothing is won in the first quarter. It was not the first quarter that we were hoping for. What our narrative was in the timeouts was just we had to find our footing. Find our footing defensively, and we did the second quarter. We held them to 12 after giving up 32. We went into halftime in good shape.”

Lynx star Napheesa Collier said facing an early deficit was nothing new for the team: “That’s when we really lean on our defense.”

“That’s something we were talking about, getting three stops in a row, chipping at it a little bit at a time,” she added. “Not thinking about the point difference, but thinking about the possession that we need to get a stop and a score. That’s just what we were talking about at halftime.”

Minnesota pulled within two in the third before the Liberty answered to go up by 15 midway through the final frame. But the Lynx closed regulation with an 18-3 spurt, getting their first lead of the game with 5.5 seconds on the clock at 84-83, thanks to a four-point play by Williams after she sank a 3-pointer while being fouled by New York guard Sabrina Ionescu.

Stewart managed to draw a shooting foul with 0.8 seconds left, making the first free throw but missing the second, leading to an extra five minutes of play.

“I just thought we went away from our principles of play,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said of her team’s collapse. “I think we had a great first quarter, and then they lifted up the energy and they outhustled us.”

“We can’t play to ‘not lose’ and I think we started to play a little bit [like that],” Ionescu added. “We were up a lot, and we kind of were looking at the clock, and it seemed like we took our foot off the gas a little bit. And it ended biting us in the butt there late.”

The Lynx mostly controlled overtime. Collier hit what ended up being the winning shot — a turnaround fadeway jumper near the top of the key — with 8.8 seconds remaining, which was followed by Stewart’s missed layup.

“Listen, I want to be taking these shots,” Stewart said of her struggles down the stretch. “I feel like knowing my teammates and that everyone has confidence in me is important. It’s kind of like on to the next and still making sure I’m aggressive any time on the court. Obviously as a player, it’s very frustrating.”

The Lynx — whose dynastic run with four championships in the 2010s was led by WNBA legends Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles and Lindsay Whalen — saw three players score 20 points in a Finals game for the first time in franchise history.

Kayla McBride (22 points) kept her team in it throughout with big shots, including four 3-pointers. Collier got going with 21 points and was omnipresent defensively with three steals, six blocks and deflections that didn’t show up on the box score.

Williams was the star of the night for her four-point play. According to Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time in a regular-season or playoff WNBA game that there was a four-point play in the final 10 seconds and the free throw gave that team the lead.

But she did so much more outside of that singular moment, scoring 15 points across the fourth quarter and overtime.

“That’s just a testament to how we believe in each other,” Williams said about taking on more of a scoring role Thursday. “We have so many great 3-point shooters, and the fact that these girls are out here trying to get me the ball, I mean, I could cry.

“This is amazing. I love it. I say that all the time, and I don’t say that for fun. These people I’m around, we believe in each other so much. It’s crazy, man. I’m happy to be here.”

The Liberty made 13 3-pointers and received a 24-point, 10-rebound double-double from Jonquel Jones. They boasted 19 more shot attempts than the Lynx (90-71) and came away with 20 offensive rebounds, securing a plus-12 edge on the glass.

But their good stretches weren’t enough to outweigh their mistakes and the Lynx’s furious rally.

“We’re disappointed,” Brondello said. “We have to be better. We’re a better team than what we showed today.”

New York, known for its five Finals appearances without a championship, fell to 0-6 in the opening game of the Finals, the longest losing streak in Game 1 of any postseason series in league history.

“I think they took us out of what we wanted to run,” Brondello added. “They were really aggressive. They were blowing up stuff. We couldn’t get clear passes. We tried to go downhill and they would stunt and get back, and we just got a little bit stagnant. I thought we were slow. We were up, so you’re trying to move the ball, but then we are slow in our speed, execution speed, and then it was making it easy for them.”

Added Reeve: “We held them below 40% [shooting], which is monumental. A lot of that was obviously late. We got big stops when we needed them. Repeatedly, whether ball is going out of bounds or 50/50 balls, referees, whatever happens, jump balls, fouls, all that stuff, we just had to be gritty at the end. We had to get stops to win, and that’s what I’m proud of.”

The teams reconvene Sunday in Brooklyn for Game 2 (3 p.m. ET, ABC) before the best-of-five series moves to Minneapolis for Game 3 and, if needed, Game 4.