Minnesota Lynx win Commissioner’s Cup with closely fought victory against New York Liberty
By Thomas Schlachter, CNN
(CNN) — The Minnesota Lynx held off a hard-fighting New York Liberty 94-89 to win the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship on Tuesday.
Led by Bridget Carleton’s 23 points, the Lynx won the closely fought matchup against New York, which holds the WNBA’s best record at 15-3. Napheesa Collier was named game MVP with 21 points with six rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block.
“We don’t really care what you think, except for right now, where we get to say to you, ‘You’ve got to talk about us,’” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said after the win.
“We just beat a superteam. You know how hard that is to do? Because you guys love your superteams. That’s all you want to talk about, your superteams. But we just beat a superteam. Let’s talk about it.”
The Liberty are able to boast stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu on their roster and the duo represented in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
Two-time MVP Stewart led the game in scoring with 24 points and added 11 rebounds as the 29-year-old picked up another double-double.
Ionescu also put up a double-double with 23 points and 10 rebounds – though the star went a measly 2-of-11 from deep – but it wasn’t to be enough for the Liberty.
“I think that they [Lynx] executed better than us,” Stewart said of late-game moments. “Both ends of the floor. We weren’t able to get really anything that we wanted and then they kept finding, no matter who it was, one of their players.”
The Liberty were also uncharacteristically sloppy with the rock – New York had 20 turnovers to Minnesota’s 10 – with Stewart explaining that the difference proved costly for the league’s best team.
Stewart and Ionescu alone had 12 turnovers – more than the entire Lynx squad – and Carleton and Collier made the Liberty pay.
“I have so much trust in my teammates and my teammates have so much trust in me,” Carleton said postgame. “They found me in good places especially in the first half and I got hot.”
“That’s the way we’ve been playing all season. We share the ball really well, so I know when the ball comes to me I’m gonna be ready to knock it down when I’m open.
“This group’s been a lot of fun to play with, on the court, off the court, so I’m just happy we got this done today.”
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