A special Minnesota Lynx season came to an anticlimactic, disappointing end on Sunday night in Phoenix. Without their suspended head coach or their injured superstar, the Lynx squandered two separate leads of 13-14 points and fell to the Mercury, 86-81, in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals. Kayla McBride's valiant 31-point effort wasn't quite enough.

It capped a stretch of three straight losses after the No. 1-seeded Lynx had cruised to a win in the second half of Game 1. Not once during a 34-10 regular season did Minnesota lose three consecutive games; Cheryl Reeve's team only lost two in a row one time all year.

Instead of getting back to the Finals and having a chance to avenge last year's heartbreaking, controversial five-game loss to the Liberty, albeit against a different opponent, the

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