Minnesota Lynx 'revenge tour,' explained

NINA MOINI: The playoffs are finally here for the Minnesota Lynx. They've been the number one team in the WNBA all season long, and seemingly just waiting for the big games to start. Well, they started yesterday with a first-round playoff game against the Golden State Valkyries, and the Lynx won big. But if you weren't watching, don't worry. Our own superfan, Emily Reese, is here to get us on the Lynx bandwagon. Thank you so much for being with us, Emily.

EMILY REESE: Hi, Nina. Thanks for having me, yes.

NINA MOINI: Although you're here every day--

EMILY REESE: Fair enough.

NINA MOINI: --as folks may know, as our wonderful newscaster. What they may not know is that you're just about as big of a Lynx fan as they come.

EMILY REESE: I love the Lynx, absolutely.

NINA MOINI: How did the Lynx do yesterday?

EMILY REESE: They won big. They beat the San Francisco Valkyries 101 to 72. It was a very slow start for the Lynx and a fast start for the Valkyries, but then the tables turned and the Lynx came back. So they're in this playoff series, where they have to win two out of three to advance to the next. So they've won one, so right now, if they win the next game, they're on to the next round of the playoffs.

NINA MOINI: I know it's hard to believe, Emily, but not all of us have been following the Lynx as closely as you have. There might be some holdouts out there. What do you say to them? Why jump on the Lynx bandwagon? They do pretty well as a team.

EMILY REESE: They are so good. It is a team of stars. And it's a team of humans who do extraordinary things, so for me, it's almost less about the basketball and more about the people. Because they're all such wonderful people, and they're good at literally everything they do. They're amazing basketball players on every single side of the ball, and you just watch them do these wonderful things night after night. And if that doesn't interest you, there's a juicy revenge story.

NINA MOINI: Ooh!

EMILY REESE: Everybody loves a juicy revenge story. And we've got a fashion angle. I mean, the WNBA in general has really exploded fashion-wise. But we've got a fashion angle we can get to later.

NINA MOINI: I love all those angles, actually. I'd love to know what's going on this year with the playoffs. What makes the playoffs so special this time around?

EMILY REESE: Players and fans are absolutely out for revenge this year. In fact, the Lynx are on something they call a revenge tour, and the players and fans are absolutely super motivated by it.

NINA MOINI: That sounds really intense, Emily.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, seriously, I can't even dial down my emotion about it, really.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So what happened last year that is making everyone seek out this revenge?

EMILY REESE: There was this play at the very end of the final game. So the series was tied. It meant that whoever won that game wins the title. Very final seconds of the game, the Lynx were in the lead by 2. New York has the ball. The player who had the ball, Breanna Stewart, did something that's called a travel in the basketball, where you hold the ball and take too many steps. And then the refs called a foul on one of the Lynx players that was not a foul. [LAUGHS]

So what that meant is that New York then had an opportunity to tie the game. And they did in the very final seconds, sent it into overtime, and then they won, and it was just super heartbreaking. Officiating was questionable, definitely, in that moment. But throughout the whole series both coaches, Cheryl Reeve for the Lynx, Sandy Brondello for New York, they both complained heavily in post-game interviews throughout the whole series about the officiating throughout the series.

NINA MOINI: Oh, yeah. They were not shy. I remember that, Emily. So what do you think contributes to this pattern of coaches and players being so disappointed with officiating? I mean, are they just whining, or is something really going on there?

EMILY REESE: A lot of people tend to point to the pay discrepancy between refs that work the WNBA, the NCAA at the college level, and then the men's team, the NBA. The WNBA makes much, much less than even the NCAA refs do by thousands of dollars per game, depending on your experience, of course, and other things. But it is a pretty massive pay discrepancy. And I think we all like to think that the people who are compensated the best have the most skill, and if that's how things are, then there's an issue in the WNBA. They really could stand to look at that a little better, try and get some better refs in, I think.

NINA MOINI: And so it's surfacing again, these issues, in this playoffs.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, absolutely. It's been an issue in this playoffs, and it was a very big issue in last year's playoffs. And this is why we're back to this revenge tour, where that one call at the very end of that game was absolutely awful and it makes it seem like one call can decide a game. And you can hear Cheryl Reeve's disappointment last year after the final game, when New York won it all because of what seemed like one call.

CHERYL REEVE: And all the headlines will be, Reeve cries foul. Bring it on, right? Bring it on, because this [MUTED] was stolen from us. Bring it on.

EMILY REESE: She was mad.

NINA MOINI: Whoa, yeah. So was there more controversy?

EMILY REESE: Well, yeah. And I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why so many people are still stirred up. It wasn't just one thing that seemed so egregious at the end. The WNBA tweeted something. They said something like, the trophy is where it belongs.

NINA MOINI: Oh.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, meaning New York. So then that got deleted, and I'm just like, how dare you? How dare you tweet that? And then even worse, the WNBA commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, was wearing a dress that had the New York City skyline on it. So she's not sporting any Minnesota swag.

NINA MOINI: Where's the spoon and cherry dress?

EMILY REESE: (LAUGHING) Yeah, exactly.

NINA MOINI: We want to see it!

EMILY REESE: Right? Just the nerve, for real. The nerve. These things left such a bad taste in the mouths of fans like me, and it was such a bad look. And what made it even worse, I think, is there was never any acknowledgment of any of those things. The bad call, everybody still talks about it, but nothing was done about it. Cathy Engelbert never said, I'm sorry for wearing a New York skyline dress.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS]

EMILY REESE: And the WNBA never said, oops, we shouldn't have tweeted that tweet. And that stuff just feels awful, so.

NINA MOINI: But it's kind of this fuel, right? When you're talking about this revenge tour, I mean, it's almost fun in a way, I bet, for the fans and the players to have something to unite around and have all this energy around.

EMILY REESE: Yeah. I mean, an argument could be made that we could also just have energy around winning a sixth title instead of a fifth title. I think it definitely fuels elite athletes. They're trained to do these things. They have all kinds of their psychology training and whatnot to be able to handle these kinds of things.

And that's impressive in and of itself, to watch how they've come back this year and channeled it into this amazing season full of records. But of course we're out for revenge, but I just really want there to be no controversy. That's what I want. I just want a team to win and everybody be like, wow, the best team won.

NINA MOINI: What are the chances that the Lynx here, and their archenemy the Liberty, meeting again in the finals? Do you think that they're going to go all the way again this year, and have a repeat?

EMILY REESE: Well, they can't because the Liberty weren't a high enough seed for it, so that means that in the tournament, they're on the wrong side of the bracket. So what'll happen is if they meet, it'll be right away in this very next round. So right now the Lynx are playing San Francisco, and the Liberty, New York, they're playing Phoenix. And the Liberty just beat Phoenix in game one yesterday, so the Liberty also on track to maybe advance to the next round. Which is when we would play them, if we advance to the next round. I hope that made sense.

[LAUGHTER]

NINA MOINI: I'm like, hold on!

EMILY REESE: It just means--

NINA MOINI: Play it back!

EMILY REESE: Yeah, what it means is that they can't meet in the finals. It's impossible. The way the bracket is, it's impossible. So if they meet, it'll be after we beat San Francisco.

NINA MOINI: All right. So for now, the revenge tour sort of rolls on Wednesday night, right?

EMILY REESE: It does. It does, yeah, for the Lynx to try and advance to that next round and go all the way. They will be in San Francisco Wednesday night playing the Valkyries again. So game two of the three-game series, and if the Lynx do it, they'll go on to the next round. And then hopefully take it all this year. They deserve it. They really do.

NINA MOINI: Aw, Emily Reese, you love the Lynx. I think you're convincing other people to jump on the bandwagon this time, but you're going to have two more chances to try to convince our listeners to get on this Lynx bandwagon this week. We're going to see you back here tomorrow and Wednesday. And you talked a little bit about fashion, but we're going to talk a little bit more about that, right?

EMILY REESE: (LAUGHING) Yes. Totally my wheelhouse, exactly.

NINA MOINI: See? Something for everyone. That's what we're about. Thank you, Emily Reese. That's Emily Reese, our newscaster and Lynx superfan.