the 2024 Commissioner’s Cup » Winsidr

The Minnesota Lynx are on top once again. This time, the trophy is shaped a bit differently—accentuated by a crown, but it still symbolizes yet another chip for the mighty Midwestern squad who managed to topple the reigning Commissioner’s Cup champion New York Liberty by a final score of 94-89. 

This dub was headlined by defense, with the Lynx forcing a whopping 21 turnovers on the Liberty thanks to some sensational on-ball pressure and mounting deflections on New York’s passes into the post. Three-point shooting was also, once again, the tale of the win for Minnesota. It was not the usual suspect, Kayla McBride, lighting it up from deep. Instead, Bridget Carleton, Napheesa Collier and Cecilia Zandalasini led the way with the trey ball and helped to bury the Liberty’s hot shooting start from Kayla Thornton and Sabrina Ionescu (including an eardrum-piercing second quarter run in which the pair outscored the Lynx 20-9). 

Collier snagged Most Valuable Player honors, adding another notch to an already impeccable MVP-caliber season for her. While Collier did not lead in scoring for Minnesota, she was in the middle of almost every defensive action and helped to shut Jonquel Jones’ water completely off, aiding in holding her to only three points and three shot attempts the entire game. 

Winsidr Senior Writers Ace Pedraza and Myles Ehrlich braved rush hour traffic to take in the game and offer observations. Let’s dive into a few of the key moments from the championship game, and takeaways for each team following the tournament’s closing contest. 

Turnovers:

Ace: New York bogged themselves down in one category throughout the game—turning the ball over. The Liberty have averaged 14.7 turnovers per game so far this season, and during the Commissioner’s Cup championship game, you would likely expect for them to really emphasize taking care of the rock against such a defensively-minded Minnesota team. 

You’d be wrong in that assumption. 

They had 21 total turnovers, mostly due to a combination of them trying to force feed Jonquel Jones in the post to get her scoring going and because of just how lanky the Lynx are, aiding them in their efforts to disrupt almost every passing lane or passing window the Liberty had. This led to seven turnovers from Sabrina Ionescu alone, as she was running point for most of the contest. 

“They’re obviously a really active defensive team,” Ionescu said after the game about her own turnovers. “They make you play a lot quicker than normal. Those reads, they were normal, but they were a lot harder to make. I was sped up trying to get us into these actions.” 

Many came as she was trying to get the ball into Jones, who was being completely wrapped up by a combination of Alanna Smith, Bridget Carleton and Napheesa Collier for much of the game. 

Minnesota held her to just three points and three field goal attempts, a testament to their discipline defensively. 

Collier said after the game that Smith’s commitment to defense has been a key to the Lynx’s success on that end of the floor so far this season. 

“Alanna’s been amazing,” Collier said. “She has a huge assignment every night, often the tallest, most physical player. She’s such a solid player for us. I’m really glad he’s on our team. I remember how hard it was to play against her.”

In addition to the defense of the Liberty big, the Lynx noticeably increased their intensity defensively on-ball. Courtney Williams was especially troublesome for the Liberty, but the entire team was committed to fighting through screens and making the right switches to ensure no New York player ever had an easy shot. It was a masterclass on how to play proper team defense, something Collier says was a point of emphasis all the way back during training camp for the Lynx. 

“This is my sixth year with the Lynx, and this is the best training camp we ever had. The attention to detail, the aggressiveness. I think it translated into our season.”

Alanna and Courtney

Myles: A lot of talk this season about Minnesota’s success has been centered around the brilliant play of Napheesa Collier, last night’s MVP, and she absolutely deserves all that shine! She’s arguably been the best player in the league not named A’ja Wilson, and that was again on display Tuesday night at UBS. One player does not make a team, though. The Lynx do not win the Commissioner’s Cup–and likely don’t even make it to the final–without the contributions of a few new faces in that huddle, Alanna Smith and Courtney Williams.

Smith’s trajectory as a pro has been interesting to follow: three low usage years in Phoenix, then a short stint with the Fever before being cast off and finding immediate growth and success elsewhere (also known as the Betnijah Laney-Hamilton). She burst onto the scene with the Sky last year as a most improved candidate, nearly doubling all her counting stats, but also establishing herself as a strong help defender and rim protector. The leap from ‘23 to ‘24 has been just as impressive, and when you look at Minnesota’s league-best defense, Smith is in the middle of all of it and is deserving of All-W Defensive Team consideration. 

Her three blocks Tuesday night highlight her versatility (all three clipped below). First, she bothers a Jonquel Jones reverse layup attempt, following an offensive rebound. (A reminder that Jones is shooting a ridiculous league-best 78.7 percent within the restricted area.) Then, she ranges out to get fingertips on a Betnijah Laney-Hamilton wingthree attempt. And finally, she converges with a crowd to deny a Breanna Stewart driving layup.

As for Williams, though her statline might not wow you (11 points on 15 shots, but eight assists and three steals), her fingerprints were all over the important moments of the game. In the fourth quarter, after a quick 9-0 run from Stewart had trimmed the Lynx’s advantage to just a point, it was Williams that buried a late clock midrange jumper–her specialty–to preserve the lead for Minnesota. Then, a few minutes later, a perfectly timed bounce pass to a cutting Collier pushed the lead to an insurmountable seven-point edge. 

Williams’ enthusiasm is contagious, and it’s her ability to create an instant bucket that makes her such a tough guard, whether that’s immediately squaring for a jumper from anywhere inside the arc or making a quick decision to find a teammate on the move.

See Also

Bridget Carleton’s MVP-Caliber Game

Ace: Collier was the eventual lifter of the Commissioner’s Cup Most Valuable Player trophy at center court of UBS Arena, but her winning the accolade left some wondering what else her teammate, Carleton, could have done to clinch the award. 

Carleton was stellar on both ends, helping to lock up Jones while also going a ridiculous 6-8 from three point range. She finished with 23 points, five assists and four boards, and as a plus-4 despite playing a heavy 36 minutes for Minnesota. 

This is no knock on Collier, who started to heat up here and there for the Lynx in the second half and who was also a defensive anchor for the team as they looked to prevent pretty much any looks for Jones. Additionally, she seemingly gathered up so many deflections that led to turnovers for the Liberty, and that sustained defensive intensity could have swayed voters. But, Carleton certainly felt like the pick here given how good she was from tip off. It’s still very cool to see Collier get her MV-Phee campaign bolstered by this trophy, though. 

The UBS Experience

Myles: There has been a good deal of discussion about the inconvenient venue shift, but if you missed that discourse, this AP writeup can catch you up. Basically, the Barclays Center had been pre-booked for the NBA Draft, which the league had been told several times over, dating back to December(!). With just eight days between the announcement that the game had moved to UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island (a gorgeous building, but a bit of a trek for Liberty Loyals traveling from the boroughs), it was tough to fill the arena. 

Per Across the Timeline, the New York Liberty have averaged 12,522 fans so far through nine home games in 2024, the franchise’s highest mark since 2002 and up from last year’s 7,777 mark. The growth has been linear since the move to Brooklyn in 2021, growing exponentially each year. Last night’s number: just 7,035, per the final box. 

To the Liberty’s credit, they did all they could to get people out to the Island, with one season-ticket holder telling me they’d arranged six buses to shuttle seafoamers from Barclays to UBS. While there were still a ton of empty seats in the unfamiliar territory, those in the building *did* make their presence known with volume. (I do think it’s worth acknowledging that our media seats were on the floor, instead of from our usual high perch, so the noise likely hit us harder, but the sound was near-deafening whenever the Liberty went on a run.) 

What did you think of the crowd last night, Ace?

Ace: As a pretty frequent public transportation-user, I knew there might be some hiccups for fans trying to get all the way to UBS Arena on the LIRR as opposed to what is probably a hop skip and a jump to Barclays on the subway. That said, I thought the crowd was really great! There were definitely more empty patches in sections that may have not been empty had the game been at Barclays, and I believe just having the bottom bowl open sort of added to a shrunken feeling for such a big event. 

But, the Ellie Wave was electric, the crowd pop for all five of Kayla Thornton’s threes was palpable and the support for Courtney Vandersloot in her first game back after losing her mother recently was felt. I really hope that next season, logistics are maybe more on point for all involved parties–the league and the team–to prevent this from happening again. And, to a point you made yesterday Myles, the game and Cup would probably be better served to be played on a weekend as opposed to such a random Tuesday night.