ATLANTA — It had been 20 years of waiting for a professional championship to return to Minnesota.
What were a few more minutes?
The Minnesota Lynx on Friday night waited like antsy children on Christmas morning to bust loose and celebrate the end of a two-decade championship drought. Someone was missing from the celebratory gathering, however, and team protocol demanded they wait until everyone was assembled.
When coach Cheryl Reeve finally arrived, the showering of champagne began.
The Lynx’s magical season concluded with a 73-67 victory over the Atlanta Dream in Game 3 of the WNBA championship series in front of a sellout crowd of 11,543 at Philips Arena.
Finals most valuable player Seimone Augustus scored 16 points, grabbed five rebounds and had four assists to power the Lynx to a three-game sweep in the best-of-five series. Maya Moore added 15 points, and Rebekkah Brunson chipped in 13 points and nine rebounds to help complete the Lynx’s domination of the league.
Minnesota went 27-7 in the regular season, 7-1 in the playoffs.
“We have waited a long time for this,” Augustus said. “I will wait all over again for something this joyful. Let the popping of the bottles begin and continue.”
The Lynx are the first major professional sports team in Minnesota to win a championship since the Twins defeated the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 World Series. In 1999, the Minnesota Thunder men’s professional soccer team won a national championship in the A-League, considered a step down from top-level Major League Soccer.
Atlanta, swept for the second consecutive season in the championship series, got 22 points from Angel McCoughtry. She was held relatively in check after scoring 33 and 38 points, respectively, in Games 1 and 2.
The Lynx couldn’t bust out, though, until Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Lindsay Whalen, Augustus and Moore made free throws in the final minute after the Dream rallied to within 64-63.
“We are happy to (win a championship) for (Minnesota),” Reeve said. “It has been a long time. We’ve had great support all year from our fans, whether they came for the first time or since the beginning. I am really happy for them to provide a winning team, and we did things the right way.”
“It was an incredible journey,” McWilliams-Franklin said. “No one believed that the Minnesota Lynx could do this, but us.”
The WNBA championship is the second for McWilliams-Franklin, Brunson and reserve Alexis Hornbuckle. It was the first title for Whalen in three championship series, the first two coming with the Connecticut Sun.
“Now I know what it feels like to be on the other side,” she said.
Whalen, who preached all season that she and teammates were staying level-headed amid the success, deadpanned: “We just have to stay focused now. We have some video to watch.”
With a smile, the former University of Minnesota star exclaimed: “We don’t have practice. We won!”
Lynx owner Glen Taylor, who brought the WNBA franchise to the Twin Cities in 1999, choked through his emotions afterward.
“I am so proud of this team,” he said amid a massive celebration. “I am very fortunate. It is a dream come true, to be realistic. You hope, you hope and you hope that something special like this will happen, but sometimes the odds aren’t in your favor. When it happens, it is rather wonderful. We had visions of a championship many years ago. Thank goodness, it finally came true.”
They were stopped short in the 2004 playoffs but not this time.
Celebration plans: The Lynx will return to the Twin Cities today on Delta Flight No. 744. The flight is scheduled to arrive about 4:30 p.m.
A parade down Nicollet Avenue in downtown Minneapolis will begin at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. A rally will follow at Target Center at 12:15 p.m.
