Lynx on the prowl with WNBA awards
Collier, Smith and Reeve honored with end-of-season honors
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The Minnesota Lynx are on the prowl. Ahead of game one of the WNBA semi-finals, two Lynx players and their coach were honored with end-of-season awards.
Here’s what we know:
Napheesa Collier
Napheesa Collier was named the WNBA’s best defensive player on Sunday.
The Lynx forward is the second Lynx player to win the award. Sylvia Fowles won the award in 2016 and 2021.
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According to WNBA, Collier wrapped up her sixth season in Minnesota by starting 34 games and averaging 20.4 points per game, 9.7 rebounds per game, 3.4 assists per game, 1.91 steals per game and 1.41 blocks per game in 34.7 minutes per game.
She was second in the WNBA in steals, third in rebounds and seventh in blocks, posting career-high averages in all three categories, and helped the Lynx finish with the league's second best defensive rating (94.8) while holding teams to the WNBA's lowest field goal percentage (41.0 percent).
In August, Collier won her second gold medal with Team USA after a win over France in the Olympic women’s basketball final game.
Alanna Smith
The WNBA also announced that Lynx forward Alanna Smith earned all-defensive second-team honors, marking the first WNBA award of her career.
Based on WNBA’s data, Collier and Smith led the league’s second-ranked defense (94.8 Defensive Rating) while anchoring a team that finished first in opponents' field goal percentage (41.0 percent), second in points allowed (75.6 per game), second in three-point field goals allowed (6.83 per game) and second in steals (8.57 per game).
Overall, Minnesota kept a WNBA-best 15 of 40 opponents below 40 percent from the field, going 14-1 in those contests.
Smith completed her first year in Minnesota by ranking fifth in the WNBA in blocks (a career-high 1.46 per game) and 14th in steals (a career-high 1.36 per game). Her 57 blocks are the fourth highest single-season total in Lynx history.
Cheryl Reeve
Cheryl Reeve, the Minnesota Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations was named WNBA’s coach and basketball executive of the year.
Reeve is the first coach to win the coach of the year award four times, after earning the honor in 2011, 2016 and 2020. And this is Reeve’s second basketball executive of the year award, after receiving it in 2019.
The Lynx head coach also joins Curt Miller — Los Angeles Sparks head coach — as the only person to win coach of basketball executive of the year awards in the same season.
