PHOENIX -- Kayla McBride covered her face with her shirt, trying to soak up the tears. A season she and her Minnesota Lynx teammates envisioned would bring a trophy and champagne instead ended Sunday with sadness and frustration.

This wasn't in the script the Lynx had been authoring so diligently for the past 4½ months. They were the WNBA's best team. They won a franchise-record 34 games and had the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. And then Minnesota's season transformed from a feel-good musical to a shocking horror movie.

In the Lynx's must-win Game 4, Cheryl Reeve, the WNBA's longest-tenured head coach, wasn't on the sidelines, serving a one-game suspension for a Game 3 ejection and criticism of the officiating. Napheesa Collier , an MVP favorite for most of the season and by far Minn

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