New York decided this one in the space of a single possession, and Minnesota spent the last eight minutes proving it had no answer.
The Lynx led 69-67 when Olivia Miles muscled home a three-point play with 8:18 to go. Breanna Stewart walked it up the floor and buried a three on the very next trip, and New York never trailed again, outscoring Minnesota 23-12 to close the game out. Two possessions, four points, and a night that had been a coin flip until that exact moment. There was no single blown coverage to rewind, no rotation that vanished. There was a Stewart three, a cold Lynx trip behind it, and then the slow math of a team that could get a bucket answering a team that suddenly couldn’t.
You can blame the 17-day World Cup break, and the rust was real. Minnesota shot 39.2 percent from the floor and 6-for-22 from three, grinding for looks that would have fallen a month ago. But rust lets the actual problem walk out the back door. When the game turned heavy in the fourth, New York had shotmakers and Minnesota had grinders, and that gap is not a scheduling quirk.
Stewart was exactly the problem the matchup promised. She finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three steals, passed Sue Bird for ninth on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list along the way, and hit the shot that decided it. Jonquel Jones bullied the glass for 18 and 10. Sabrina Ionescu controlled the late-game offense with 17 points and six assists, and every time Minnesota needed a stop, the Liberty produced a bucket instead.
New York won the depth battle, too, which is supposed to be Minnesota’s whole identity. Pauline Astier chipped in 14 and Marine Johannes 13, and the Liberty’s second unit outplayed the Lynx bench in the minutes that used to be Minnesota’s advantage. That is the part that should sting in the film room.
Miles was the Lynx’s best player, and it was not close. She scored 20, but it took her 18 field-goal attempts and 12 free throws to get there. That is the tell. Minnesota’s point guard had to invent the offense because the stars around her would not take it off her hands.
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Napheesa Collier is the harder problem. Back from offseason surgery on both ankles, she finished with 14 quiet points and played like a complementary piece in a game that was screaming for a two-time MVP runner-up. Kayla McBride added 16 and Courtney Williams 12, respectable lines that went quiet once the game tightened. When your best player scores 14 at home, you lose games you were built to win.
I grew up arguing basketball alone in a Duluth driveway against a hockey family that thought the paint was for checking, so let me be blunt: a team this good should not need Olivia Miles to carry its shot creation inside Target Center.
The standings still say Minnesota is fine, and on paper that holds. The Lynx are 31-10 and hold the No. 1 seed, with the tiebreaker over Golden State after a 3-1 season series against the Valkyries. Two wins in their final three clinch the top overall spot: Sunday at Connecticut, then a home-and-home with Indiana. The catch is that Golden State won again Friday, its fifth straight, so the cushion that felt like a formality a week ago has become a countdown the Lynx are running down themselves.
Here is what Friday actually revealed. This roster was built to win the margins, to be the deeper, sharper group that outlasts you over 40 minutes. Three straight losses say the margin is thinner than the record, and that the whole thing still runs through health and shotmaking Minnesota cannot summon on command. Against a healthy contender that could, the Lynx summoned neither.
The seed is still theirs; Friday asked whether they’ve earned it.
