This matchup is everything we as fans want to see in a Finals: The two best teams, both stacked with stars and each posing matchup challenges for the other, going head-to-head for the chance to call themselves champions.
The New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx were the top two seeds in the WNBA regular season, and they have advanced to face off in the WNBA Finals starting Thursday night.
This is a Finals stacked with star power. There are three gold medalists from the Paris Olympics: 2023 MVP Breanna Stewart, 2024 MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier, and 3-time All-Star Sabrina Ionescu. That’s not to mention former MVP Jonquel Jones, 5-time All-Star and WNBA champion Courtney Vandersloot, four-time All-Star Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams, just to name a few.
Here’s everything you need to know about the 2024 WNBA Finals.
Are the WNBA Finals 5 or 7 games?
The WNBA Finals are a best-of-five series played in a 2-2-1 format. Because New York had the better regular season record (the best in the W), it will host Games 1 and 2 at the Barclays Center, then the series shifts to Minnesota for Games 3 and 4. If there is a Game 5, it will be back in Brooklyn.
How to watch the 2024 WNBA Finals?
Here is the broadcast schedule for the WNBA Finals:
Game 1: Lynx at Liberty, Thursday Oct. 10 (8 ET, ESPN)
Game 2: Lynx at Liberty, Sunday Oct. 13 (3 ET, ABC)
Game 3: Liberty at Lynx, Wednesday Oct. 16 (8 ET, ESPN)
*Game 4: Liberty at Lynx, Friday Oct. 18 (8 ET, ESPN)
*Game 5: Lynx at Liberty, Sunday Oct. 20 (8 ET, ESPN)
All times are Eastern (* = if necessary)
All games can be streamed on ESPN+
Who won the 2023 WNBA championship?
The Las Vegas Aces — behind strong play from A’Ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum — knocked off the New York Liberty, making it back-to-back WNBA championships for Sin City.
Las Vegas had been dominant all season, going 34-6 with the best offense and defense in the league. The Aces lost just one game through their playoff run, to the Liberty in the Finals.
New York Liberty vs Minnesota Lynx head-to-head record
Minnesota owned the regular season series this year, taking three of the four head-to-head games. That included when the teams met in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship — the WNBA’s in-season tournament that has become one of the highlights of the league’s calendar. Bridget Carleton stepped up for Minnesota with 23 points in that game, including hitting 6-of-8 from 3, while Napheesa Collier was her usual impressive self with 21 points and six rebounds.
Have the New York Liberty ever won a WNBA championship?
No. The Liberty have the dubious distinction of having been to the WNBA Finals five times and never coming away with a championship banner. That’s a league record.
Four of those losses came in the first six seasons of the WNBA’s existence, when the Liberty fell three times to Cynthia Cooper’s powerhouse Houston Comets (which won the first four WNBA titles). Then, in 2002, the Liberty were back in the Finals but ran into Lisa Leslie and the Los Angeles Sparks on their back-to-back title run.
The Liberty returned to the Finals last season but ran into a dominant Las Vegas Aces squad on its way to back-to-back titles. That’s why the Liberty beating the Aces in the semi-finals this year was so cathartic for New York.
Have the Minnesota Lynx ever been to the WNBA finals?
The WNBA Finals are like an old friend for the Lynx — 2024 will be the franchise’s seventh trip to the WNBA’s biggest stage and they have four titles to show for it.
From 2011 to 2017 — the Maya Moore era in Minnesota — the Lynx went to the Finals six out of seven years. It wasn’t just Moore who was great on those Minnesota teams, they also had Sylvia Fowles (two-time Finals MVP), Seimone Augustus and many more. Those teams were stacked, much like the 2024 version of the Lynx.
Which team has the most WNBA titles?
The now-defunct Houston Comets and the Minnesota Lynx have each won four WNBA titles.
In the first four years of the WNBA’s existence — 1997 to 2000 — Houston Comets won four consecutive rings behind four-time Finals MVP and WNBA legend Cynthia Cooper. They beat the New York Liberty in three of those four seasons, and the Phoenix Mercury once.
Minnesota won four titles between 2011 and 2017, winning one every other year, but they never repeated as champions.
2024 WNBA Finals odds
New York is a relatively heavy favorite to win its first WNBA title, the Liberty are -275 to win the series at our partners Bet MGM, while Minnesota is +220 to win the series.
For Game 1, the Liberty are -6 favorites at home.
Three things to watch for in Minnesota vs. New York
1) Can New York handle the pressure?
This feels like a now-or-never moment for the Liberty. They have the weight of history on their shoulders with the franchise being 0-5 in the Finals, but this year they come in with the best team (boasting both the best record and net rating in the league).
Can they handle that pressure on the league’s biggest stage?
They have so far this season. The Liberty came into this season with a chip on their shoulders after falling to Las Vegas in last year’s Finals. That is embodied by the team’s star, Brianna Stewart, who struggled in last year’s Finals and then was mocked by the Aces during their celebrations (which hit Stewart harder because her father-in-law died during that series). Look what Stewart said about that, via the USA Today’s Lindsay Schnell after beating the Aces.
“I have the receipts on the things that were said. Our entire team does. But really, my mentality today was to go and get this win for my wife and for her dad.”
New York comes into this series with two key advantages: Rest and home-court advantage. Of those, the rest may be the bigger one — the Liberty finished off the Aces on Sunday, flew home, and had a few days to recover and game plan. The Lynx played Tuesday night at home and beat the Sun to advance to the Finals, then had to board a plane the next day to get to New York. That break could be a big difference in Game 1.
2) Which team controls the paint?
The Liberty were the best team in the WNBA this season largely because nobody could handle their size and athleticism up front with two former MVPs in Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones — the Lynx were the exception.
That’s thanks to Napheesa Collier, who has had a breakout season and carried that into the playoffs where she has set a WNBA record with three straight 25-point, 10-rebound games. For the playoffs, she is averaging 27.1 points and 9.6 rebounds a game. Collier and Alanna Smith give the Lynx size to match the Liberty, and Minnesota added more inside presence off the bench with an in-season trade for Myisha Hines-Allen.
Stewart and Collier have been the two best players in the WNBA playoffs so far (with all due respect to Ionescu). One key to this matchup may be Stewart’s defensive versatility — she can cover guards who are breaking down the Liberty defense and shut them down (for NBA fans, she has a Draymond Green level of defensive versatility). In the close-out game against the Aces last round, Stewart was assigned to lock up Aces guard Kelsey Plum, which proved the difference. Stewart also played more of a point-forward role on offense in that series. Her versatility could be a deciding factor in this series.
3) Which team is hotter from 3?
It seems a bit reductive in modern basketball to say, “The hotter team from 3 will win,” but in this series, shooting from deep will play a huge role. Both teams rely heavily on the 3, with the Liberty scoring 35.5% of its points this regular season from beyond the arc, while the Lynx were at 34.8%.
Sabrina Ionescu is the player to watch this series — she is on a tear in the playoffs, scoring 20.7 points a game and hitting 46.5% from 3 in the postseason, including five 3-pointers in closing out Las Vegas. However, she struggled this season against the Lynx, which pressured her out high and Ionescu didn’t always handle it well.
While the Lynx have shooter Kayla McBride, keep an eye on Bridget Carleton, who lit up the Liberty in the Commisioner’s Cup Championship game and led the team with 23 points. Minnesota needs her to get hot and win them a game or two this series.
Despite all that talk of shooting, don’t expect a shootout: These are two of the top three defensive teams in the WNBA this season.
WNBA Finals full winners list
1997 — Houston Comets
1998 — Houston Comets
1999 — Houston Comets
2000 — Houston Comets
2001 — Los Angeles Sparks
2002 — Los Angeles Sparks
2003 — Detroit Shock
2004 — Seattle Storm
2005 — Sacramento Monarchs
2006 — Detroit Shock
2007 — Phoenix Mercury
2008 — Detroit Shock
2009 — Phoenix Mercury
2010 — Seattle Storm
2011 — Minnesota Lynx
2012 — Indiana Fever
2013 — Minnesota Lynx
2014 — Phoenix Mercury
2015 — Minnesota Lynx
2016 — Los Angeles Sparks
2017 — Minnesota Lynx
2018 — Seattle Storm
2019 — Washington Mystics
2020 — Seattle Storm
2021 — Chicago Sky
2022 — Las Vegas Aces
2023 — Las Vegas Aces
