WNBA playoffs: Napheesa Collier makes history as Lynx move on to face Sun

One UConn legend is getting ready to say goodbye, while another is just getting started.

Diana Taurasi hasn’t addressed her possible retirement after 20 seasons in the WNBA, but if Wednesday was her last game, she went out at the hands of another UConn player, one whose legacy is only beginning.

Napheesa Collier led the No. 2 Lynx past the No. 7 Mercury with a 42-point performance in a 101-88 Game 2 first-round series victory. One day earlier Collier spoke of playing with and against Taurasi.

“It seems like it’s her retirement tour,” Collier said. “I don’t know. She’s been pretty quiet about it. But, she’s obviously a UConn great, a league GOAT.”

“So, I feel lucky to have been able to play with her on Team USA and against her, and hopefully, we can end her career on Wednesday.”

With that last sentence, a sly smile spread onto Collier’s face. She was joking … kind of.

Collier wanted to win Game 2 at all costs rather than go to Phoenix for a deciding Game 3, and the forward did everything in her power to make that happen. In the sweep, Collier totaled 80 points, the most by any player in a two-game playoff stretch. Her 42 points also tied a postseason record for most points in a game.

And yet, when Collier looked at the box score following the game, she had only one thought.

“I should have made my free throws,” she said, with that same sly smile.

Collier went 12-of-14 from the free-throw line. One more make would have broken the single-game scoring record. But head coach Cheryl Reeve didn’t let her star get away from acknowledging the greatness that was her series performance.

“She tied the single-game record, but she’s got the two-game record,” Reeve said. “So she’s first in that.”

Collier has been Minnesota’s catalyst this season, averaging 20.4 points per game and finishing second in MVP voting. When the Lynx need a basket, it’s Collier who gets it. That was the case in Game 1, when Minnesota battled a resilient Mercury team that went from trailing by 23 in the first half to leading by one in the fourth quarter. Collier scored 38 points in that victory, something that Reeve addressed in the locker room prior to the second matchup.

“I told the team before the game, ‘Look, she’s not going to get 38 tonight.’ So she came out and she said, ‘Coach, you were right.’ She had 42,” Reeve said with a laugh. “So that was an incredible, incredible run.”

Collier scored in a variety of ways in Wednesday’s win. She got to the rim, finished in the midrange and knocked down 3-pointers. Collier shot 70% from the field in Game 2, and 57.9% in Game 1.

“Phee just has the ability, each game, to know what she’s going to get, and how she’s going to get it,” Reeve said. “If they are going to let her be in the paint, then she is going to find herself in the paint. … She understands how to play in movement and be on the perimeter and shoot the basketball. She just finds different ways to impact the game.”

With the win over Phoenix, the No. 2 Lynx move onto a semifinal matchup with No. 3 Connecticut. The two teams have met three times this season. Connecticut won the first, 83-81 in overtime, and the second 78-73, but Minnesota was victorious in their most recent matchup, a 78-76 win on Sept. 17.

Collier led the Lynx in scoring in two of the games, with 31 points in the first matchup and 25 in the second.