After Game 4 heroics, is Lynx forward Bridget Carleton in line for the Naz Reid treatment?

Lynx star Napheesa Collier has a new idea for your next tattoo.

With two seconds left in Friday’s Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, Bridget Carleton grabbed a rebound off a Courtney Williams miss and lobbed up a putback to break the 80-80 deadlock. No good, but Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu fouled Carleton on the boxout, sending her to the line to sink two free throws and tie the series, 2-2.

The winner-take-all Game 5 is Sunday night in Brooklyn.

During the Timberwolves deep playoff run to the NBA Western Conference finals, big performances from Naz Reid endeared him to fans and helped him become an inked meme in the process. Local tattoo shop Beloved Studios offered fans $20 “Naz Reid’ tattoos.

After Friday’s win, Collier called for “BC” tattoos to recognize the three-point sharpshooter that has been with the Lynx since 2019 and has posted career highs in points, minutes and rebounds this season.

”That’s the hardest shot in basketball, free throws at the end of the game. To knock those down at the end of the game, that’s just exactly who BC is,” Collier said. “They were saying Naz free tattoos, I think BC free tattoos is next.”

Carleton also guarded Ionescu as she chucked up her own last-second shot in hopes of scoring another deep game-winning three like she did in Game 3.

”[Carleton] is a hustle-play player,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “That’s just what she does, everyday. You can always count on her to be there for you.”

Plenty has been made of this year’s Lynx team looking different than the Hall-of-Famer-fueled squad that won four titles between 2011 and 2017. A new roster, with a strong supporting cast around MVP runner-up Collier. Different pieces to what the Lynx hope turns into a similar-looking puzzle: a fifth championship.

But there’s one Lynx player who was on that 2017 roster: Cecilia Zandalasini. That year, the now 28-year-old Italian wing played just two minutes in the Lynx’s series win over the Los Angeles Sparks (which also included a Minnesota Game 4 victory to force a decisive winner-take-all).

”I came in the middle of the season. I was very young,” Zandalasini said. “This is a very different me. I’ve grown as a player … and grown as a person as well.”

After the 2018 season, Zandalasini headed overseas to play in Europe. But as Reeve built out her new-look 2024 roster, she brought Zandalasini back, six years later.

”We’ve always stayed in touch throughout the years, we’ve always tried to get her back here, and the timing was good for this one,” Reeve said.

Coming off the bench for the Lynx, Zandalasini has seen a slight dip in minutes this postseason, 12.2 to 9.1 per game. But in Game 4, she played a scrappy 16 minutes, missing her only two free throws but then scoring six points and grabbing four rebounds with a game-best +6 plus-minus.

”She goes through a stretch of games where maybe she’s not contributing the way she wants to contribute,” Reeve said. “Then all of a sudden, we had a Ceci sighting at shootaround the other day.”

After Game 4, Reeve was asked about why she thinks this series has brought each game down to the wire: no blowouts, no time to coast into a fourth quarter.

“Is that why we miss layups, so that we can get down to the nitty-gritty?” Reeve said. Kayla McBride, sitting next to Reeve at the post-game press conference, let out an exasperated “Cheryl” and tapped her on the shoulder.

But she’s not wrong. In Game 3, the Lynx shot better from three (9-21, 42.9%) than they did from the entire floor (29-75, 38.7%). In Friday’s game, the Liberty outscored Minnesota 38-26 in the paint, with Minnesota making just 13 of those 27 close-range shots.

Missing contested layups has been one of Minnesota’s struggles this series and could prove a point of separation in a decisive Game 5.

Since the WNBA Finals became a best-of-five series in 2005, they’ve has stretched to five games just six times before this season, and last in 2019. The away team has won Game 5 on the road twice — 2006 and 2016. Reeve has been on each side, once.

In 2006, Reeve was then an assistant coach for the Detroit Shock, which upset the top-seeded Sacramento Monarchs on the road. Then, in 2016, the Los Angeles Sparks came to Target Center for Game 5 and spoiled the Lynx’s attempt at back-to-back titles.