Liberty 67, Lynx 62: Referees Ruin an Instant Classic

The Minnesota Lynx fall to New York Liberty in a winner-take-all overtime game five, marred by questionable officiating at the end of regulation.

I absolutely hate that this is the story I have to write about tonight’s game. I will do my best to point out what happened and give a recap on the actual basketball that took place tonight but unfortunately, that is only part of the full story that was Game 5 of the 2024 WNBA Finals. The New York Liberty will celebrate their first ring in team history and the Minnesota Lynx will go home just a few plays short of their fifth title in team history.

The game started as most elimination games do with both sides working their way into a rhythm. Usually, these games start tentatively as both sides are airing on the more conservative side in order to not get caught in a bad position. The Lynx defense was stifling at the beginning as the Liberty were held scoreless for the first four minutes of the game. Minnesota found their footing at the end of the period with a 7-0 run to take an early advantage of 19-10 at the end of the first quarter.

Kayla McBride and Napheesa Collier traded off taking over on offense to start the second, scoring the first 7 points for the Lynx. Collier was been special to start the game as the Lynx offense was firing and got easy and open looks throughout the first half. Lynx took a 34-27 lead into halftime. Napheesa Collier led the way with 14 points while Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionesco combined to shoot 2/17 and scored five points in the first half. Another half where the Lynx played well but should have been up by more.

A quick couple of buckets made it a one-possession game early on in the third quarter as it was the Lynx’s turn to dry up on offense, they scored one point in the first 5 minutes of the third. Luckily, their defense held strong as they were able to hold their slight five-point lead. The Lynx offensive woes continued late in the third as the Liberty took their first lead of the game, 40-38 with 3:07 left. An even rest of the quarter had the game within one possession 10 minutes from the championship.

A very tough start to the quarter for both sides in the final frame as both teams could not score. The game stayed within one possession the entire fourth until Sabrina Ionescu hit her first and only shot of the night – a three-pointer with 3:10 left in the 4th quarter.

The Lynx kept battling and took the lead with some clutch Napheesa Collier buckets down the stretch. Breanna Stewart got a foul call with 38 seconds remaining and missed both free throws that could have tied the game. Phee had a shot right at the end but could not convert. Stewart got another foul call, after traveling twice when she caught the ball and drilled both free throws for the tie. Overtime.

In overtime, the Lynx turned the ball over six times and could never get a basket when they needed one. Their only points came off of two free throws by Kayla McBride. Bridget Carleton had a chance to tie the game with seconds left but could not convert and Stewart iced the game, and the title.

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Power Outages and Turnovers

The Lynx had the chance in the first half to extend their lead a lot longer than they did. They were only able to maintain a seven-point lead going into halftime which gives you little room for error in the grand scheme of things. They had offensive power outages in the third quarter and overtime that helped the Liberty get back into the game and steal it.

The other story was turnovers. The Lynx turned the ball over six times in overtime and only scored two points. You cannot win a game like that.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

Refereeing

This, to me, was the story of the game. On the surface level, we can just look at the free throw disparity: Liberty – 21/25, Lynx – 7/8. Time and time again you would see Napheesa Collier take it strong to the rim and would not receive the same calls that Breanna Stewart received 94 feet away on the other end of the floor.

Napheesa Collier shot 0 (that’s ZERO!) free throws in this game. Breanna Stewart shot eight. This could be subjective and yes I am biased but that is head-scratching for every person that watched that game.

I could go through and pull clips from the entire game of the referees inserting themselves into the game, usually for the Liberty’s benefit. The only one I will share at this time was one of the worst calls that I have seen in my entire life.

Before the foul was even called, Breanna Stewart shuffles her feet twice in possession of the ball. That is a travel that would be called in 3rd-grade rec league basketball. Then we get to the foul, where Breanna Stewart takes a dribble and throws the ball at the rim where Alanna Smith is waiting for her. Smith sticks her hands straight up and the referees decide it’s their time to shine. An egregious no-call and then an egregious call let the Liberty tie and force overtime.

You know it is bad when one of the best players to ever play is tweeting about it. This was not the only one and like I said (and may do tomorrow) I would have plenty of ammunition to back up this claim as games are not won and lost on one play.

All day long, millions of people were excited to watch a winner-take-all WNBA basketball game where two great teams would duke it out for the right to call themselves champions. This was not that.

That was not basketball. The referees are there as bumpers. They set the parameters in which the game is to be played. What they are not is interlopers. They inserted themselves into the action and acted as megalomaniacs who decided to take the outcome of the game into their own hands.

I wish that I could talk about Jonquel Jones looking unstoppable in the post or how Sabrina Ionescu was dicing the Lynx defense in the pick-and-roll. How Courtney Williams’s tough shotmaking lifted the Lynx to the title or how Napheesa Collier stamped her mark as one of the best in the game. But I can’t, and the way this game was refereed took that from all of us.