Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve reflects on Game 4 suspension and Minnesota’s playoff exit

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve ended this season not hoisting a record fifth WNBA title but watching on a TV screen as her team walked off the court in Phoenix.

Reeve served a one-game suspension in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals — what would turn out to be Minnesota’s final loss of a championship-favored season — after confronting officials and lambasting the league postgame after Lynx star Napheesa Collier went down with an ankle injury on a no-call at the end of Game 3.

“I’m responsible for, you know, tempering my emotions at times, and I’ve largely done that,” Reeve said during Tuesday’s team exit interviews. “A cumulative effect that started last season, that all the way through seeing your star player getting run through on a play, that’s what you saw.”

In her first media availability since the news conference that led to her suspension, Reeve called the league’s punishment “unprecedented” but largely left it at that. Instead, she spent more time appreciating the group of players that won 64 games across two seasons, a group she watched play as a spectator through a hotel TV screen.

“I’ve certainly watched a game on TV before — not us,“ Reeve said. ”When they come out of timeouts in the formation, I know what we were about to run.

“But I had always heard how much people go ... ‘We just love, get so much joy, just love watching you play.’ And when I was watching, I said, ‘I get it now.’... It’s fun basketball, the way that they connect with each other, their response to things that don’t go your way.”

Reeve also offered her assessment of the Lynx’s three final losses against Phoenix in the semifinals.

Game 2’s 20-point collapse was “a coaching loss,” she said. The rest of the series, the Mercury’s defense disrupted the Lynx’s free-flowing style of play and brought a physicality that Minnesota couldn’t match — different, Reeve made clear, from the same kind of physical play she had called officiating “malpractice” after Game 3.

“When I say physicality, I just mean when players are generating an energy,” Reeve said. “Our roster wasn’t necessarily completely equipped to handle that, and that was something we were very self-aware of ... and we tried to add in our trade for DiJonai [Carrington],” who missed the playoffs with a foot injury.

When asked whether she regretted any of her actions or statements after Game 3, Reeve said she wished she was “in the trenches” with the team in their final game, but “I can only be me. I never apologize for being me. I do think it’s important to grow and understand consequences of actions, for sure, but I will always stand up for our players’ health and safety and the fair treatment of our organization, and I will try to continue to grow.”

Reeve was reportedly fined $15,000 for pursuing officials and yelling at fans once ejected, in addition to her postgame comments. Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon and Indiana coach Stephanie White were each fined $1,000 for voicing agreement with Reeve’s complaints, per reports.

“That’s who Cheryl is. She’s going to stand on business,” Lynx guard Courtney Williams said. “That’s what she do, bro, whether that be Phee, whether that be, you know, any one of us.”

“Walking off the court the other day, like, I can’t imagine feeling like that for another team,” McBride said. “I really built a home.”

But they also acknowledged the uncertainty ahead of them this offseason. With the WNBA players association’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of October, most of the league’s veterans are free agents. That includes all five Lynx starters and bench players like Natisha Hiedeman, Carrington and Jessica Shepard. Two expansion teams will also join the league, looking to build out their rosters.

“It’s so many hurdles that we kind of got to get over before we can even get into the free agency talk,” Williams said. “So hopefully we can get on the same page with the league and get the CBA negotiated.”

Despite the uncertainty of the CBA negotiations and what next WNBA season could look like, several Lynx players already have offseason plans lined up.

Williams, Smith and Hiedeman are all slated to play in Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 basketball league that Collier co-founded with New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart. Collier has also been announced as one of the league’s 54 players but will have to recover from her ankle injury first, which turned out to be “a couple torn ligaments, a torn shin muscle, but no broken bone, which is good.” She did not detail a recovery timeline.