Napheesa Collier, the unassuming and unflappable superstar, has led the Lynx back to the WNBA Finals

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — After the Minnesota Lynx soundly defeated the Connecticut Sun in a winner-take-all game to advance to the WNBA Finals, Napheesa Collier carried her 2-year-old daughter with her to the podium for the postgame interview.

The session was only a few seconds old when Mila, who got to stay up late on this monumental night, grew restless and was whisked away by her dad, Collier’s husband, Alex Bazzell. Despite her toddler’s protest and repeated cries to return to mom’s arms, Collier remained cool and collected — just like she is on the court.

“What makes Phee special is the consistency and the way she shows up every single day,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “Phee is always the same: her work ethic, her demeanor, her passion for improving. She’s improved every season. She’s just been incredible, and every game it’s more than scoring how she helps our team.”

Collier’s performance in Game 5 of the semifinals on Tuesday was simply vintage Collier. She had 27 points on 10-for-16 shooting, 11 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and one steal in 37 minutes to lead the 88-77 victory that sent Minnesota to the finals for the first time since winning its fourth title in 2017. The Lynx will face the New York Liberty in Game 1 on Thursday.

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“She’s a great player. She made plays on both sides of the ball. She led her team all night. She was aggressive,” said Connecticut’s DeWanna Bonner, who was frequently matched up with Collier at the power forward spot. “She’s been having a great year all year, so I didn’t see that stopping this game. When she’s in rhythm, it’s tough to stop.”

Finishing fifth in the league in scoring and third in rebounding as Collier did during the regular season is a remarkable feat. Factor in her WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award, and this is a true generational player in an era of the league when the star power has never been higher. But what sets Collier apart is how humble and unassuming she is, traits she possessed long before she became a mom and took most of the 2022 season off.

She’s a renaissance woman off the court, an Olympian with Team USA who has partnered with her former college teammate and current Liberty star Breanna Stewart to found a 3-on-3 league, Unrivaled, that is scheduled to begin competition in January and pay six-figure salaries with equity stakes for players. Still, Collier is often one of the WNBA’s more overlooked stars, having never been this far in the playoffs before and not playing for one of the league’s marquee teams.

“I’ve played with so many great players, and Phee is so different, it’s crazy,” Lynx point guard Courtney Williams said. “She is so coachable, from anybody. It does not matter. She just wants to be great. She shows up every day in her humility and the way she talks to people and the way she carries herself, it’s actually insane. Like this girl’s a bona fide superstar. They don’t act like that. A lot of superstars do not act like that, and the way she shows up and she cares, it’s different. When your leader and your superstar moves like that, it’s easy to trickle down.”

At times, Reeve and her staff have to prod Collier to be more aggressive to find her shot, rather than deferring too much to the outside shooters. There is, after all, no bigger fan of them than her.

“The fact that we have worked hard and we genuinely just love each other so much, it just makes it all the sweeter and it makes you want to win for them, too,” Collier said. “It’s not just like you want to get the accolade of winning a championship, you want to do it for your teammates as well, and I think that makes the ride that much sweeter. You want to keep playing because you want to stay together, because you know that every year looks different. This team will never be the exact same again, so not only do we want to win a championship, but we don’t want to leave each other yet.”

The 2019 WNBA Rookie of the Year has come a long way since her time at UConn, when she came to the league as a relatively undersized post player lacking exceptional ball skills. Now she can consistently score off the dribble, knock down 3-pointers and do everything else between rebounding and defending. Every season has brought improvement, including this one when she met Reeve’s challenge to win the Defensive Player of the Year award.

“She doesn’t need us to tell her. She knows what she needs to get better,” Reeve said. “I still think she’s got more ways to improve, and that’s what MVPs do, great players do. They never feel like they’ve arrived. They just keep getting better and better, and that’s what Phee has done.”

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