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Michael Voebel is a senior writer at ESPN
NEW YORK – Courtney Williams once joked that it was a big moment when her mother, Michelle Williams, admitted that Courtney was the best basketball player in the family.
That came more than a decade ago, when the Minnesota Lynx guard broke her mother’s single-game record at Charlton County High School in Folkston, Georgia, about 40 miles north of Jacksonville, Florida.
Williams has been playing hoops for a long time: at South Florida in college basketball, then in the WNBA starting in the first round in 2016. She is playing in the WNBA Finals for the third time.
But Williams’ biggest stage came on Thursday, when the Lynx completed an unexpected run to win Game 1 of the WNBA Finals 95-93 in overtime over the New York Liberty. Williams scored 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists.
She made the shot of the night — a 3-pointer with 5.1 seconds left — and the ensuing free throw to seal the four-point play. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this was the first time a team had a four-point game lead in the final 10 seconds of any game in WNBA history.
The Lynx needed the extra period to secure the win. But if Minnesota goes on to win the 2024 title — which would be a WNBA-record fifth for the franchise and a first for Williams — it may be its biggest chance ever.
“I don’t know where it ranks,” Williams said. “It’s (No. 1) now because we’re here. I like to be where my feet are planted.”
Williams is averaging 5.6 assists per game for the Lynx over eight postseason games. She also ranks second on the club in points per game (14.9) and shoots 58.8% (10 of 17) from beyond the arc (compared to 33.3% in the regular season).
Bottom line, she is a tremendous player, with the confident energy of a natural goalscorer. The higher the risk, the more willing she is to do so.
“Courtney has been around for a while,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “She came into the finals, knowing her team needed her to be aggressive.”
Selected No. 8 by the Phoenix Mercury in the 2016 draft, Williams was selected behind players like Liberty stars Breanna Stewart (No. 1) and Jonquel Jones (No. 6). She was with the Mercury briefly in her rookie season before being traded to the Connecticut Sun. Williams and the Sun advanced to the 2019 WNBA Finals but lost to the Washington Mystics.
In 2020, Williams was traded again, this time to the Atlanta Dream, and produced two of her highest-scoring seasons – 14.6 PPG in 2020 and 16.5 PPG in 2021.
But after the 2021 season, a video surfaced online of Williams and other Dream players involved in a fight outside an Atlanta club in May 2021. Williams then discussed the altercation on a YouTube video that was soon deleted, and later apologized on social media. Dream chose not to return it.
In February 2022, Williams signed a one-year contract with Connecticut and was part of the Sun’s WNBA Finals team that lost to the Las Vegas Aces. She played for the Chicago Sky last season.
Williams has her fifth franchise in nine WNBA seasons but seems to feel right at home in Minnesota.
“These guys that I’m around, we believe in each other so much,” Williams said Thursday. “It’s crazy, man. I’m happy to be here.”
Williams and forward Alana Smith came to the Lynx this offseason as free agents from Chicago. They both made breakthroughs last year with Sky. For Smith, 2023 was proof that she could be an effective starter in the league.
2:08
Andrea Carter crashes Lynx’ comeback win against Liberty
Andraya Carter joins Scott Van Pelt to discuss how the Minnesota Lynx overcame an 18-point deficit to win Game 1 from the Liberty in the WNBA Finals.
Williams’ rise has come in a more specific area: passing. She is averaging 6.3 assists, the most of her career, in 2023. That playmaking ability stood out to Reeve in free agency as something the Lynx really needed. Minnesota is averaging 19.4 assists in 2023, which ranks sixth in the league. This season, the Lynx led the WNBA with 23.0 assists per game. Williams’ team averaged 5.5.
Reeve, who has coached four Minnesota championship teams led by Naismith Hall of Fame guard Lindsay Whalen, said this Lynx team is one of the best teams she has ever had at moving the ball.
“We are higher than any team I have ever coached for a pick-and-roll championship,” Reeve said. “The game has evolved a lot. We’re very different from those teams. Three-point shooting wasn’t the strength of those teams.”
Traditionally, this has not been a strength for Williams in the WNBA, yet she has found success in big moments from behind the arc.
She made less than one shot per game during her career; Her season high is 47 in 2023. This year, she made 23 3-pointers in the regular season, but has 10 in eight playoff games. Two of them came in Game 1 of the Finals, the second in overtime after New York cut the lead to one with 1:16 left.
It was that night for Williams. Whether she’s hitting big shots, making a right pass, or interacting with her father and No. 1 fan, Don Williams, on the sidelines, Courtney is doing what she loves best.
“We have a close-knit circle with our families involved as well,” Williams said. “We never give up.”
