No. 8 seed Liberty sweep top-seeded Lynx out of WNBA playoffs

The New York Liberty eliminated the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx from the WNBA playoffs on Tuesday night, closing out a first-round sweep with an 87-71 win that ended the best regular-season record in the league in just two games.

Jonquel Jones led New York with 21 points and 13 rebounds, and Breanna Stewart added 21 points of her own as the Liberty, seeded eighth entering the playoffs, never trailed for long against a Lynx team that had finished the regular season 33-11. According to the New York Liberty's official recap of the series, the Liberty built their advantage from the opening minutes and controlled the game's pace throughout, a continuation of the form they showed in a 91-75 Game 1 win at Target Center two nights earlier, when Stewart scored 34 points. Minnesota's Courtney Williams finished with 18 points and eight rebounds in Tuesday's loss, and Kayla McBride added 14 points, four assists and three steals, but the Lynx trailed by double digits for most of the second half and could not generate the outside shooting that had carried them through the regular season, according to FOX Sports' box score of the game.

A stinging early exit for Minnesota

The result marks the second consecutive year the Lynx have exited the playoffs earlier than their regular-season seeding suggested they should, a pattern that will weigh heavily on a franchise that has not won a WNBA championship since 2017 despite consistently finishing among the league's top teams. Minnesota entered this postseason as the No. 1 overall seed and had been considered among the favorites to reach the Finals, making Tuesday's sweep one of the more lopsided upsets of this year's playoff field. Head coach Cheryl Reeve, who earned her fifth WNBA Coach of the Year award this season, had acknowledged after the Game 1 loss that the team had "some things to fix," but Minnesota was unable to correct course before its season ended.

For the Liberty, the sweep sends a defending-contender roster that includes Stewart, Jones and All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu into the semifinal round with momentum and, for the moment, one of the league's hottest teams. New York's ability to win consecutive road games at Target Center, one of the WNBA's more difficult venues for visiting teams, will likely make the Liberty an uncomfortable draw for whichever team they face next as the playoff bracket advances.

The first-round upset also continues a season-long theme in the WNBA of tighter competitive balance than in years past, with rookie standout Olivia Miles — who set the league's all-time rookie scoring record with 790 points this season for Minnesota — unable to prevent her team's early exit despite a breakout debut campaign that earned her the league's Rookie of the Year award. Her performance offered little consolation to a Lynx franchise now facing an offseason of questions about how a roster built to win now was outplayed so decisively when the games mattered most.

The Liberty now advance to the semifinal round, where they will await the winner of another first-round series as they look to build on Tuesday's statement win.