A fiery rant from Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve led to a suspension from her squad’s potential elimination game.
Cheryl Reeve was anything but Minnesota nice when it came to addressing the officiating in the WNBA Playoffs and she’ll now serve a suspension for it.
The league announced on Saturday that Reeve, the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx, will not appear on the sideline for her squad’s potential swan song. She has been suspended for Sunday’s Game 4 of the best-of-five semifinal series against the Phoenix Mercury (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
A statement from the league states that Reeve has been charged with “aggressively pursuing and verbally abusing a game official on the court, failure to leave the court in a timely manner upon her ejection … inappropriate comments made to fans when exiting the court, and remarks made in a postgame press conference.” In addition to Reeve’s ousting, assistant coaches Rebekkah Brunson and Eric Thibault were each assessed fines.
Minnesota trails 2-1 after dropping an 84-76 decision on Friday at PHX Arena. The game was partly decided by Phoenix ending the game on a 9-0 run, with two points proving particularly controversial: with just over 20 seconds remaining, Alyssa Thomas stole the ball from Lynx franchise face Napheesa Collier and turned it into a fastbreak double that created a six-point lead and hysterics in the desert.
Infuriated that no foul was called against Thomas, Reeve angrily berated officials, who promptly charged her with her second technical foul of the night, leading to her automatic ejection. As hinted in the league’s statement, Reeve made sure her complaints were well-logged, as she continued to yell at officials while also dealing with jeers from Mercury fans, while Collier was attended to by the medical staff before requiring assistance to leave the floor herself. Thibault was likewise charged with a technical, leading to his fine for “inappropriate interaction with an official on the court.”
After the game, Reeve used her brief time at the podium to further berate officials, which no doubt contributed to the league’s sentence. She took particularly issue with the treatment of Collier, who was afforded no singles on Friday despite engaging in physical play. Minnesota as a whole had just 11 free throw attempts in the showdown, six alone coming from the arms of Natisha Hiedeman. Brunson likewise earned a fine for commenting on the aforementioned Collier-Thomas get-together on X.
“One of the best players in the league shot zero free throws and had five fouls, got her shoulder pulled out, finished the game with her leg being taken out and probably has a fracture,” Reeve said, per Ahmad Hicks of KMSP. “”The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff worthy is f***ing malpractice … We got players getting cracked on the glass and there’s no call. All they say is, ‘It wasn’t my call, I didn’t see it that way.’ They’re f***ing awful.”
This is far from the first time that Reeve has publicly voiced her displeasure with WNBA officiating: less than a year ago, Reeve minced no words about the supervision of the deciding game of the WNBA Finals, which saw the New York Liberty earn an overtime, championship-producing win after Breanna Stewart hit equalizing free throws at the end of regulation. Reeve claimed that her fifth WNBA championship ring was “stolen” in the aftermath, taking issue with the call against Alanna Smith. Collier was likewise denied a visit to the foul line in that game, a 67-62 New York victory.
This is NOT a foul. Thomas legally gets to the ball and knocks the ball loose prior to any contact. The leg to leg contact is incidental once the ball is clearly loose. This was correctly judged in real time as a no call as were the subsequent technical fouls. pic.twitter.com/kdImDRwsNe
— NBA Referees (@OfficialNBARefs) September 27, 2025
Despite incurring Reeve’s wrath, the lack of call against Thomas was ruled to be the right decision by the official X account of NBA officials, who ruled that Collier had lost control of the ball prior to the unfortunate contact (see above). Collier did not attempt a free throw during Friday’s game.
After the league announced Reeve’s suspension, the Lynx announced Collier has been ruled out of Sunday’s Game 4 with an ankle injury suffered on that fateful play.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags