Previewing Mercury-Lynx Game 4: An injured star, a suspended coach and officiating in the spotlight

PHOENIX -- The Minnesota Lynx sat atop the standings passim the 2025 play and were the dense favorites to instrumentality to the WNBA Finals and play for their 5th rubric successful franchise history. But heading into Sunday's Game 4 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) of their semifinal bid against the Phoenix Mercury, they are connected the brink of elimination aft losing 2 consecutive games.

Phoenix's 84-76 Game 3 triumph Friday ended successful chaos. At 1 extremity of the court, Lynx guardant Napheesa Collier sat connected the floor, grabbing her near ankle aft she collided with Mercury defender Alyssa Thomas. On the different end, Minnesota manager Cheryl Reeve was pulled disconnected the tribunal by her unit with astir 21 seconds to play aft berating the officials for not calling a foul connected Thomas.

In her postgame quality conference, Reeve said assigning the 3 Game 3 officials to a playoff semifinal crippled was "malpractice" and that a alteration was needed astatine the league level regarding its referee hiring and enactment process.

Though the Lynx person not updated Collier's status, the WNBA connected Saturday suspended Reeve for 1 game.

ESPN's Kendra Andrews, Charlie Creme, Kevin Pelton and Michael Voepel look astatine what to expect Sunday from some teams, arsenic good arsenic the officiating, and what Collier's uncertain presumption means for the remainder of the WNBA playoffs.

Why haven't the Lynx been arsenic ascendant successful this bid arsenic they were successful the regular season?

Voepel: It's not antithetic successful pro sports for teams that had to conflict until the extremity of the regular play for their playoff spot to look sharper than teams that clinched their postseason berth truly early. The Lynx wrapped up the No. 1 effect and home-court vantage connected Aug. 30, 12 days earlier the extremity of the regular season. There was thing for Minnesota to summation implicit its past 5 regular-season games. Reeve insisted they inactive meant thing and the Lynx would not unbend oregon get stagnant, but that's easier said than done.

Still, had Minnesota rebounded Phoenix defender Sami Whitcomb's airball with 8 seconds near successful regularisation successful Game 2, likelihood are the Lynx would person closed retired that triumph and been up 2-0 going into Phoenix. Instead, they mislaid successful overtime, which dramatically changed the tenor of the series. Collier's wounded and the Lynx's nonaccomplishment successful Game 3 pushed the momentum adjacent further successful Phoenix's favor.

Andrews: Simply put, the Lynx person not looked similar the aforesaid squad they were during the regular season, 1 that dominated the WNBA since May and had a wide fastener connected the No. 1 seed. After having the league's champion defence each twelvemonth -- a 97.5 antiaircraft standing and allowing conscionable 76.7 points per crippled -- Minnesota has had the fourth-best defence done its archetypal 5 games of the postseason. The Lynx's antiaircraft standing present ranks down the Phoenix Mercury, New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream.

On offense, Minnesota has looked acold much frantic successful the semifinals than it has each season. The Lynx look rushed astatine times, and if their archetypal changeable enactment is taken away, they scramble to find thing different. The composure they had passim the regular play has slipped, and Phoenix is exploiting it.

Pelton: ESPN's Brian Windhorst likes to speech astir borderline for error, and I'd constituent to DiJonai Carrington's absence arsenic thing that eroded th...