Lynx's Napheesa Collier named WNBA's defensive player of year - ESPN

The Minnesota Lynx collected multiple honors Sunday, as Napheesa Collier was named the WNBA defensive player of the year, while Cheryl Reeve, who led the U.S. women's national team to a gold medal in the Paris Olympics, was named both the league's coach of the year and executive of the year.

The awards highlight a great run for the Lynx, the No. 2 seed in the WNBA playoffs who host the Connecticut Sun on Sunday (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Game 1 of their semifinals matchup.

Collier, who finished second to Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson in the MVP race, received 36 votes from a national panel of 67 media members to win the award for the first time.

Wilson, the league's DPOY the past two seasons, was second with 26 votes. The Seattle Storm's Ezi Magbegor was third with three votes, and the Sun's DiJonai Carrington and Minnesota's Courtney Williams each got one vote.

Collier put together the greatest two-game stretch in WNBA playoffs history, scoring 80 points combined in a pair of wins over the Phoenix Mercury in the first round. The Lynx also led the WNBA by averaging 101.5 points through two games of the playoffs.

As great as she has been offensively, Collier was the leader of a defense that finished second in defensive rating and first in opponents' effective field goal percentage. Per ESPN Research, Collier held opponents to 36.2% field goal shooting as the closest defender this season, the top mark in the league.

Collier ranked second in the WNBA in steals (1.91 per game), third in rebounds (9.7 per game) and seventh in blocks (1.41 per game), posting career-high averages in all three categories. She joins former Lynx standout Sylvia Fowles, a four-time winner, as the only franchise players to win the award.

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