Minnesota Lynx coaching staff’s championship pedigree unlike any WNBA team

For the better part of the last decade, when the weather starts to cool and the leaves start to change colors in Minneapolis, it typically means two things: Fall has arrived and so have the WNBA Finals.

“That’s Finals season,” said Minnesota Lynx assistant coach Rebekkah Brunson. “The crisper the air gets, you know. We always have that feeling around this time of year.”

From 2011 to 2017, the Lynx competed in six WNBA Finals, hosting games at the Target Center. They won four championships in that span, with Brunson being a part of all four.

On Wednesday, Minneapolis returned as host of the WNBA’s final series for the first time in seven years, with the Lynx in the midst of defining a new era for the franchise. For a fanbase accustomed to watching champions stack rings, this year’s team is starting from championship Ground Zero. Only Lynx forward Myisha Hines-Allen has won a championship, doing so with the Washington Mystics in 2019.

Minnesota’s coaching staff, however, is a completely different story. The championship pedigree of the Lynx coaching staff is unlike any other in the WNBA. Between them, they have been a part of a whopping 16 WNBA championships. 

Brunson won five championships as a player – her first with the Sacramento Monarchs in 2005 and the rest as a part of the Lynx. Associate head coach Katie Smith won two as a player with the Detroit Shock. Her teammate on the Shock, Elaine Powell, also an assistant with Minnesota, won three championships as a player in Detroit. Head coach Cheryl Reeve has been a part of six championships – four as the head coach of the Lynx and two as an assistant with Detroit. 

“It’s so important because they know exactly what to say. They’ve been here.” Lynx guard Kayla McBride said ahead of Game 2 of the Finals in New York. “You can get distracted by a lot of different things, a lot of different narratives, but they keep the narrative the same because that’s what they know.”

As the Lynx try to rally back from down 2-1 to the Liberty, they’ll lean on the lessons learned from their experienced staff as it tries to guide them to the franchise’s first title since 2017.

“They know what it takes to win,” McBride said.

As someone who has been a part of multiple championship teams, Brunson knows when a certain group has that it factor and are capable of going the distance. She said the Lynx coaching staff could see that it factor in this year’s team right away. 

Brunson credits the construction of this Minnesota team, whose synergy both on and off the court has contributed to what she believes is a winning team chemistry.

“In the beginning of this season, we knew that we had amazing culture fits and we didn’t have a lot of holes in the roster … We had all of the skillsets necessary,” Brunson said. “But the it factor is the way that they went about taking care of each other. You could see it when they weren’t on the court. You could see it in the amount of time that they spent together outside of basketball, how they interacted and how they played for each other. That’s the thing that you need, from my experience. 

“Early on, you could kind of tell they had something special. If they bought into our strategy and played as well as they could, then they could end up playing late into the season because of the chemistry thing that they had going on.” 

With so much title experience on the Minnesota bench, Lynx players have been quick to prod their championship resources for any tips and knowledge on what it takes to win. For McBride, that’s Smith – who in addition to her two WNBA titles also won two championships in the American Basketball League.

“I’m always talking to Katie before the games,” McBride said. “We watch our film before the game and she’s always saying the right things to keep my mind right on what’s important and keeping the main thing the main thing.”

Though in her first Finals with Minnesota, Natisha Hiedeman is no stranger to competing for a championship. Hiedeman was a part of the 2019 and 2022 Connecticut Sun teams, along with current teammate Courtney Williams, that also made Finals appearances. Hiedeman’s 46 career playoff games ranks fourth all-time for players who have yet to win a WNBA Finals.

Brunson called Hiedeman the “questioner” amongst the Lynx roster during these Finals.

“She’s one of the players that I feel is most excited,” Brunson said “She’s been in the playoffs when she played with Connecticut. And I think she’s very curious because they haven’t won, right? So she wants to know, what’s that extra thing that can help her get over the top, over the hump.

“She asked about how it felt, what it was like and, you know, what the arena felt like. What were we saying to each other? What were the things that we said to help each other be their best? She’s one of the more curious players, and she’s been to the Finals.” 

Brunson knows that the coaching staff’s stories and advice can only take a team so far. At the end of the day, nothing beats the learning experience of actually competing for a WNBA championship. 

“It’s not just about the strategy. We know that, and we’ll give that to them. But when you get to the Finals, it’s really about the way that it feels,” Brunson said. “Nobody can tell you how it’s gonna feel. You have to really be in it and feel it in those moments.”

There are lessons, however, that Brunson holds from past Finals experiences of her own that she hopes to impart on this current Lynx team, with the hope that they don’t repeat her past missteps. 

In 2012, a year after winning their first WNBA title in franchise history, the Lynx met the Tamika Catchings-led Indiana Fever in the Finals with a chance to repeat. Indiana robbed Minnesota of a back-to-back title, besting the Lynx in four games. It’s a series that has stuck with Brunson, the lessons of which she uses in her coaching today. 

“I always go back to that series and the physicality of that series,” Brunson said. I use that because that is one thing that you can control as a player. You can’t control making all the shots. You can’t control getting every rebound, but you can always control the energy that you play with. Dealing with the physicality of a Finals series. I always say that’s a series that we got really beat up physically. I use that as a reminder, like, to walk away from a series and feel like you just got beat up, like they took it from you, right? So make sure that’s not how you feel at the end.”

Though being in the Target Center evokes plenty of exciting Finals memories for Brunson – some of which now hang as banners in the arena’s rafters – what she was most excited for now was for her Lynx players to create their own Minnesota Finals moment. To play in front of the sold-out crowd (Game 3 hosted the largest crowd in Target Center history with 19,521 fans) and revel in the admiration of a fanbase that has longed for a return to Fall basketball.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been here,” Brunson said. They’ve never experienced that throughout their career, and I know how special that feeling is.”

For many on the Lynx, they’ll head into Game 4 on Friday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) with just the three previous games as their career experience in the Finals. Brunson said, however, that’s a great thing about the series – the ability to learn as you go. Brunson and the Minnesota coaching staff have done what they can to soften the learning curve, doing their best to help the Lynx create their own championship memories.

The Lynx will try to stave off elimination Friday and force a Game 5, which would be Sunday in Brooklyn. The last time a team came back from down 2-1 to win a championship was in 2017. The team that did it? The Lynx. It would be Brunson’s fifth and final WNBA title. 

“We try to tell them everything that we have. The good thing about having coaches that have been there is that, maybe, they listen to you a little bit more,” Brunson joked. “Just a little bit more.”