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Michael Voepel
Phoenix – Kayla macbridge Cover his face with his shirt, trying to soak tears. A season he and his Minnesota Links The teammates of the team imagined that a trophy and champagne with sadness and frustration on Sunday would end on Sunday.
It was not in the script that the links had been working so diligently for the last 4 the months. He was the best team of WNBA. He won a franchise-ricket 34 game and did the number 1 seed in the playoffs. And then the season of Minnesota turned into a shocking horror film from a feel-gud musical.
In Links’s Must-Creator Game 4, Cheryl Reve, WNBA’s longest-lasting head coach, was not on the sideline, serving a game 3 ejections and criticism to criticize a game suspension. Nefeesa colirThe most important player of an MVP favorite and remote Minnesota, an MVP for most season, was to look from the bench after a late ankle injury in Friday’s game.
Links blew up many double-nail leads and lost 86-81 Phoenix mercuryThe promise of a season to end this playoff campaign and hold the aspirations of the championship. At a Somaras PostGem News Conference, experienced guard Macbrid tried to break heart.
“For two consecutive years,” McBrid said, “McBrid said, who scored 31 points in the game 4.
“S — F — ING hurts.”
Last season, minutes after 67-62 overtime loss New York Liberty On October 20, in Game 5 of the WNBA Final, Links came to his news conferences and came up with anger and how he felt that it gave him the cost of the championship.
Links vowed to run it back in 2025, but this time the franchise claims the fifth title. And for about five months, it seemed as if he did everything correct: he returned his entire initial five, made some significant additions, made the league’s best regular-season record and got home-court benefits for the playoffs, with five games still survived his schedule.
He started Postsen in the first round with a 2–0 sweep of Golden State. He won the semi-final game 1 against Phoenix and a 48–32 lead in Halftime in Game 2 of the best-five series.
Then things get out of control. For the first time in the history of the franchise, Links lost a game in which they led at least 16 points; They were 61–0 ago. And last Tuesday, the 89-83 overtime loss for mercury was not just a speed, which needed to recover to continue its mission.
It was the beginning of the end.
In Friday’s Game 3 in Phoenix, Links took a 67–63 lead after three quarters. But Minnesota lost the fourth quarter 21-9, as well as someone more important Elisa Thomas 23.8 seconds left.
Reev lost his temper after seeing his franchise on the floor in pain. He was dropped from the game, which Mercury won 84–76, and again stopped the league work at a brief postgame address to the media.
The drama on which the colir was injured was just a spark that burnt a long -made fuse for Reeve. He is still upset about a decade after a decade in game 5 of the 2016 WNBA Finals, almost a decade, upset with a lapse shot clock violation after nearly a decade, which Sparks again won by one point for the championship.
Then, of course, a late call of last season against Links in Game 5 against New York inspired Reeve to say later, “This S — we were stolen.”
Reev thought that this season could be a year for him. Instead, it leaves the links with another wound.
“You want it for people [you’re around] Every single day, “McBrid said.” In Pro Sports, it is not better than what we have in our locker room. We lay it for each other. It is never about anyone else, but about each other. ,
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Cheryl Reve committed a crime after the loss of Sports 3 of Links
Minnesota coach Cheryl Reev is looking at the referee after the defeat for the mercury of Sports 3 of Links.
To understand the depth of despair, see how long it took to build this foundation. Seven years have passed since the retirement of Maya Moore, Lindsay Velan and Ribka Brunson from 2011 to 2017 after the retirement of three prominent players of Minnesota’s four championship teams. Links launched a new era by drafting colirs in 2019, which is underestimated by reducing the biggest draft in the history of the league.
“He was a type of person who was an extension of Links culture that was built in front of him,” Reeve said on 6 September during a postgam news conference. “Without it – if you have a superstar who is not a person – people are not around – people are not interested in coming to play Minnesota.”
In the first three sessions of Kolier, Links never made it in the second round of the playoffs. In 2022, the team completely missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010. After the first round loss in 2023, Links still faced questions in 2024. But he replied, building a team around Kolier as a superstar. He won the cup of a commissioner in June, then came close to the WNBA title in October.
“I call it a honeymoon. People are not necessarily seen at the place we were in the previous year,” Reve said at a pregem news conference on 21 September. “So we started the season with a very different perception about us. The expectations were very high.”
In this season, Links returned their top six players from 2024: forward Kolier, Alana Smith And Bridget CarltonAnd guard Curtney WilliamsMcBrid and Natasha hidmanThey brought forward Jessica ShepardWho missed the 2024 season due to their foreign commitment.
He also made strategic changes. They said Maria CleindikovaOn June 6, a free agent signs, and a 6 -foot -4 post player such as Smith and Shepard that brings more size to the paint. On August 3, he traded for guards Dijonai CarringtonThe best player of the league is known in the previous season and for his high-level defense.
Links planned for every incident. Even when Kolier injured his ankle in August and missed the seven games, Links remained on the track. He lost to the Commissioner’s Cup final for Indiana on 1 July, but only strengthened his resolve to win the season championship.
And Coliere, at least publicly, seemed to remove the disappointment of the race for MVP – A’aza Wilson After a brilliant second half, he took him fourth – saying that his real goal was the championship.
“I think I am still focused on the championship,” Kolier said September 21, the day the MVP winner was announced. “This has been my main goal throughout the season. Certainly, I want to win MVP. But the championship is what I really want for this season.”
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Reeve evicted, collides on the colir lims on Mercury’s game-sealing sequence
Reeve evicted, collides on the colir lims on Mercury’s game-sealing sequence
what went wrong? Reev and his employees will dissolve that all Offsen. To lose both collier and carrington-who faced season-ending foot injury in the first round game 2-took a big toll.
But Links also saw some of his killer instincts. He squeezed Golden State in Game 2, 75-74. He lagged 47–40 in his game 1 semi-final halftime before rally against Phoenix. Then they lost three in a row. He did not lose more than two consecutive consecutives in the regular season – and only once, in August when the colir was out.
After a strong start in game 4 on Sunday, and 13 points gained in the fourth quarter, Links prepared to force the game 5 back in Minianpolis.
But for the third time in six days, the mercury took over – and Links evaporated her dream season. They became the 11th team in the WNBA history, with the league’s best record, but not to win the championship, and the sixth of those teams not to make the WNBA final.
“I [didn’t] Look at this season and say, “Oh, it’s difficult because we have got a target on our back,” Williams said on Sunday to carry the favorite tag since starting 9–0 on Sunday. “That’s what we wanted, right? We were killed with that bug of injury, and, you know it is difficult. Shouts not giving us out.”
Because many league players will be free agents for the next season – first a new collective bargain agreement is needed – links are uncertain as to what their roster will look in 2026, a fact that makes the painful finish of this season even more touching.
“As a vet, someone who is big, I feel everything.”
