CHERYL REEVE BLASTS OFFICIATING, SAYS TITLE 'STOLEN' FROM LYNX

NEW YORK -- Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said the 2024 WNBA title was "stolen" from her team due to what she called "incredibly disappointing" officiating in Sunday's 67-62 overtime loss to the New York Liberty in the deciding Game 5 of the Finals.

Reeve took umbrage in particular with a foul call on Lynx center Alanna Smith with 5.2 seconds left in regulation. After missing a pair of foul shots a few plays earlier, 2023 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart went to the free throw line and made both attempts for New York to tie the score, effectively sending the game into overtime.

"All the headlines will be, 'Reeve cries foul.' Bring it on." Reeve said. "Bring it on. Because this s--- was stolen from us. Bring it on."

The Lynx challenged the call, but it was upheld. Reeve said after the game that a third party should be involved in reviewing challenges.

"At the other end when they challenged it, if we would have turned that clip in, they would have told us that this was marginal contact, no foul. Guaranteed. Guaranteed," Reeve said. "So, when you review, there should be the same parameters that you're reviewing with, but the three people on the game need a fourth party to let them know. Because that decided the game."

Reeve initially brought up her issues with the officiating at the beginning of Minnesota's postgame news conference when asked about her offense's lack of production in the second half.

"I saw a very physical and aggressive New York team," Reeve said. "We know this from being a part of the games for so long that sometimes you get away with this stuff when you're physical and aggressive, and they certainly did. It's a shame that officiating had such a hand in a series like this."

The Liberty shot 23 free throws to the Lynx's 6. There were 19 foul calls on Minnesota and 12 on New York.

"These guys shot 30% [from the floor]. Shot 30%," Reeve said of the Liberty. "The difference was in the foul line."

Minnesota superstar Napheesa Collier, who finished with 22 points, did not make it to the free throw line in Game 5. Entering Sunday's contest, Collier -- who went 11-for-23 from the floor in Game 5 -- never had 20 field goal attempts without a single free throw attempt in her career.

"I was getting held a little bit. It was a little hard to make shots," said Collier, who fouled out with 13.0 seconds left in overtime.

Reeve elaborated on her concerns.

"It just doesn't feel right that you lose a series with that level of discrepancy," she said. "We don't have a team that whines and complains and all that stuff. Sometimes, it probably hurts us. Maybe being a little more, I don't know, something. But you have a star player like Phee that just -- I don't get it. I don't get how she can be held and go to the basket and get hit, and then a marginal, at best, at best, sends their best player to the free throw line. I mean, that's tough. It's tough to swallow."

Asked to respond to Reeve's comments, Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said of the referees, "I thought they were pretty fair."

"The last game, that's where you get give and take. Game No. 1, we should have won that game," Brondello said. "I have so much respect for Cheryl, and I have so much respect for that Minnesota Lynx team, because, man, that was ugly.

"But we found a way to win. I'm really proud of our team, how resilient we were, how we stuck together and how we continue to trust each other. That was our word today: Just trust the process. We found a way to win."

Both coaches previously critiqued the officiating in the series, with Reeve calling out how Collier was officiated differently than Stewart after Game 3 and Brondello pointing out the foul call disparity following Game 4 when the Liberty shot nine free throws to the Lynx's 20.

"Officiating, it's not that hard," Reeve said. "When someone is being held, be consistent. If you don't want to call it a hold at one end, don't call it at the other. Be consistent. Every team asks for that. Sandy asked for that last game. Three of the games in this series, we're talking about the same damn thing."

Games 1, 3 and 4 also were incredibly close until the end, each decided by two or three points. This Finals series was the first with multiple games that went to overtime, and Sunday marked the first time a winner-take-all Finals Game 5 went to OT.

Reflecting on the season, Reeve credited her team for "[doing] the things the right way. [We] built the team within the rules ... We gave hope to those teams that aren't willing to circumvent the cap or fly illegally or all the stuff that's happened over the last five years."

- Alexa Philippou, ESPN

SABRINA LONESCU SECURES LIBERTY GAME 3 WIN VS. LYNX IN WNBA FINALS

MINNEAPOLIS -- Sabrina Ionescu had to watch video in the locker room of her winning 3-pointer Wednesday night to know just how long it was. But she said that as soon as she launched it, she thought, "Yeah, this is in."

Ionescu's 28-foot dagger that swished with 1 second left -- "definitely the biggest shot of my career" -- gave the New York Liberty an 80-77 come-from-behind win over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals. The Liberty are now one victory away from their first league title in franchise history.

"I would say I visualize a lot when I'm practicing in the offseason, the night before a game, the day of a game," Ionescu said. "I'm always visualizing different scenarios and putting myself in tough situations. Obviously, I didn't play my best tonight, but finding a way to continue to stick with it ... I feel like that's been a big growth for me, whether the ball is going in or not."

This one went in, the 10th 3-pointer of the game for the Liberty. Ionescu's shot left the Lynx's record crowd of 19,521 stunned, much like Minnesota did to the New York crowd in Game 1, a 95-93 Lynx win in overtime.

The Liberty lost an 18-point lead in that game; the Lynx lost a 15-point edge Wednesday. In both cases, there were dramatic momentum shifts and huge plays in the kind of heavyweight matchup expected when the top two seeds play for a championship.

"The hardest thing to do when we're in a series ... is there's so many ups and downs and swings," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said, "and it takes special mental toughness and physical toughness to weather those swings. We're disappointed -- we're home, we played well and just couldn't come up with the win.

"We have to dust ourselves off and get another crack at it here at home. We'll see what we can do on Friday."

The teams will return to Target Center with the Lynx trying to send the series back to New York for a deciding Game 5 on Sunday. Minnesota has an uphill battle, but it has been done before. Four other teams have won the WNBA title after being down 2-1 in the Finals, including the Lynx in 2017.

The Liberty want to end the series Friday. They are one of three original WNBA teams still in the city where they started; the other two, the Los Angeles Sparks and Phoenix Mercury, each have won three titles.

New York  has played for the championship five times before this year. One of the most dramatic of those series losses was in 1999, when the Liberty won Game 2 of what was then a best-of-three series at Houston on Teresa Weatherspoon's shot at the buzzer from beyond half court, only to lose the next day to the Comets.

Weatherspoon's shot, often cited as the most famous in league history, is one of four times that a WNBA player has made a winning 3-pointer in the last 5 seconds of a Finals game. The others were Minnesota's Maya Moore in Game 3 in 2015 against Indiana, and Los Angeles' Nikki Teasley in Game 2 in 2002 against New York.

Teasley's shot won that series in what was then still a best-of-three Finals. Moore and Minnesota lost Game 4 of the 2015 Finals, but then won Game 5 and the title.

So Ionescu is the fourth player to pull off this feat, and it came in a game that was eerily similar to New York's victory when Weatherspoon made her shot 25 years ago. The Liberty led for just 2 minutes, 19 seconds Wednesday, the second-shortest amount of time leading in a Finals win in WNBA history.

The shortest time to lead in a Finals win? You guessed it: Game 2 of the 1999 Finals, when the Liberty led the Comets for just 2:15 before Weatherspoon's buzzer-beater.

Trying to win a long-awaited championship for New York has been on Ionescu's mind since she was drafted No. 1 in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled the NCAA tournament her senior season at Oregon.

Ionescu then suffered a season-ending ankle injury in her third Liberty game. She left the WNBA's COVID-19 bubble in Bradenton, Florida, and went home to California to rehab. Ionescu said she couldn't bring herself to watch many Liberty games on television the rest of that season, as the team finished 2-20.

Then, before the 2023 season, she was joined by free agents Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot, and Jonquel Jones, who arrived via trade. Those players and Ionescu helped form the core of the team that is playing in its second consecutive WNBA Finals.

The Liberty lost 3-1 to the Las Vegas Aces last season, but the players said they learned a lot about themselves in the process. This season, New York had the best record in the regular season (32-8) and is the No. 1 seed.

The Liberty didn't look like it in the first quarter Wednesday. Contrary to fast starts in the first two games of the Finals, the Liberty trailed 28-18 after the first quarter. They cut the deficit to 43-35 by halftime.

In the third quarter, though, Stewart took over, scoring 14 points and bringing New York to within 62-61. The Lynx defense was hampered somewhat by forward Alanna Smith dealing with a back injury she suffered in the second quarter. She still played nearly 20 minutes but was clearly in pain.

Stewart previously won WNBA titles in 2018 and 2020 with the team that drafted her No. 1 in 2016, the Seattle Storm. Now playing for the team in her home state of New York, Stewart had a tough finish to Game 1 when she missed a free throw at the end of regulation and a layup at the end of overtime.

Since then, though, Stewart has come back strong. Along with her game-high 30 points Wednesday, she had 11 rebounds and 4 blocks.

"That was just a great All-WNBA second-team performance."

Sabrina Ionescu, named to the All-WNBA second team earlier Wednesday

"We don't win this game without Stewie," Ionescu said.

Ionescu, Jones and Leonie Fiebich each finished with 13 points.

Ionescu was named to the All-WNBA second team earlier Wednesday; some thought she should have been on the first team.

"That was just a great All-WNBA second-team performance," Ionescu joked after the game.

New York coach Sandy Brondello said even if Ionescu was 4-of-11 from the field before the winning shot, she never doubted for a minute she should take it.

"Obviously, Stewie got us back in there, willed us in there," Brondello said. "But I thought, '[At] the right time, this is Sabrina.' She's a great shooter.

"What I love about her is that she backs herself. Not everyone can take those big shots and make them. She can."

ESPN Research contributed to this report.

- Michael Voepel, ESPN Senior Writer