And then there were two.

The No. 1 seed New York Liberty and No. 2 seed Minnesota Lynx will vie for the 2024 championship in a best-of-five WNBA Finals beginning Thursday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) with Game 1 in Brooklyn.

Both teams enter the Finals with contrasting histories. The Liberty, one of the league's original franchises, are still searching for their first title, with last year's Finals defeat still fresh in their minds.

The Lynx were one of the most storied dynasties in the sport after winning four championships between 2011 and 2017 -- the latter also marking the last time they appeared in a Finals series, until this season.

With Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu leading the way, New York was widely expected to be back here heading into Year Two of its superteam formation. Minnesota? Not exactly. The Lynx were 19-21 in 2023 and weren't picked as a contender ahead of this season. But behind a career year from MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier, Minnesota has proved it belongs on the WNBA's biggest stage.

Minnesota needed a Game 5 to put away the Connecticut Sun in the semifinals, but it's fitting the Lynx and Liberty will face off in the Finals. They were the top two teams in the standings, and met in the 2024 Commissioner's Cup championship game in late June.

ESPN breaks down what to know about each team and what to expect from the championship series.





Regular season series: Minnesota won 3-1, including the Commissioner's Cup championship game

New York in the playoffs: Swept Atlanta Dream 2-0 in the first round; beat two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces 3-1 in the semifinals

Minnesota in the playoffs: Swept Phoenix Mercury 2-0 in the first round; beat Connecticut Sun 3-2 in the semifinals

How New York got here: After a standout 2023, the team's first season after acquiring Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot in free agency, New York retooled its bench to bring in more defense and length, most significantly signing 24-year-old rookie Leonie Fiebich from Germany (who now starts in place of Vandersloot). With enhanced chemistry among their returners, the Liberty finished with a league best 32-8 record, not losing consecutive games at any point this year. -- Philippou

How Minnesota got here: The Lynx made key changes in the offseason, bringing in Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith in free agency and trading for Natisha Hiedeman. Kayla McBride and Bridget Carleton have had strong seasons, too. Collier was Defensive Player of the Year along with a second-place MVP finish. Minnesota's only rough stretch was before the Olympic break, when Collier was dealing with plantar fasciitis. -- Voepel

How they match up: There's a reason these teams occupied the top two spots of the standings: They were the only teams to finish in top-four in both offensive and defensive rating this season, with the Lynx slightly edging the Liberty defensively but New York having the better numbers offensively. Both squads lean on sharing the ball and 3-point shooting, but the Liberty also have the tandem of 6-foot-4 Stewart and 6-6 Jones that can get it done inside.

There's plenty of star power: Stewart and Jones are former MVPs, Collier the 2024 runner-up. Ionescu, McBride and Williams are playing like three of the best guards in the league. Rotations tend to get shorter in the postseason, but Liberty coach Sandy Brondello and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve have depth at their disposal, with nine players on each team averaging at least 12 minutes per game on the season. -- Philippou

What will most impact the series: How much the Liberty are able to win the paint with Stewart and Jones might be the key to the series. It won't be easy; Minnesota got even stronger inside with the addition of forward Myisha Hines-Allen on Aug. 20. Stewart is coming off perhaps her best game of the playoffs, with 19 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks as New York eliminated Las Vegas on Sunday. But her fellow UConn grad Collier -- they played together for the Huskies in the 2015-16 championship season -- has been the playoffs' most impressive player. Tuesday was Collier's 16th career WNBA postseason game, and her third with at least 25 points and 10 rebounds. -- Voepel

New York will win it all if ... Ionescu continues to play like the best guard in the league. The former Oregon Ducks star is hungry to win her first championship after not getting a chance to compete for the NCAA title her senior year of college due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a slump when play resumed following the Olympics, she has been the Liberty's top scorer in the postseason, averaging 20.7 PPG on 48.9% shooting (46.5% on 3-pointers) plus 5.2 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game. -- Philippou

Minnesota will win it all if ... Collier asserts herself as much as she has so far in the postseason, and if Minnesota's 3-point shooting is on point. The Lynx led the WNBA in assists during the regular season; they move the ball incredibly well and spread out even the best defenses. They shot a league-best 38% from behind the arc in the regular season and don't lack any confidence facing the Liberty. Nor should they, considering their success against New York this season. -- Voepel

Which team will win the title, and why:

Philippou: Liberty in 5. New York will win because it has the hunger, focus and experience from last year's Finals defeat -- plus home court advantage -- to finally get the job done.

Voepel: Lynx in 5. Minnesota is the No. 2 seed, but was the better team head-to-head in its previous matchups with New York. The Lynx have played very consistently and cohesively all season, and they can add the league title to their Commissioner's Cup championship from June.

Former president Donald Trump’s new anti-immigration line sounds like a very old one: that immigrants are biologically worse than native-born Americans. In the latest episode of conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt’s podcast, Trump argued that the impulse to murder is determined by one’s genetics — and that immigrants today have “bad genes.” The comments seem to represent Trump’s authentic beliefs. Going back at least to his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, where he said that dealmaking ability is determined “in the genes,” Trump has credited his own success to good genes and blamed poor peoples’ failures on bad ones. But this is possibly the first time — and at least the highest-profile moment — where he has explicitly linked his faith in genetics to his obsession with migrant criminality. While Trump has long (and falsely) maintained that immigrants are responsible for the lion’s share of American crime, he has never explained exactly what it is about the current wave of migrants that makes them so much more likely to commit violent acts. Now we know the answer: that, per Trump, “[being] a murderer — I believe this — it’s in their genes.” Trump’s comments fit neatly into a broader conservative intellectual universe, unintentionally combining two disparate ideas on the right into a disturbing synthesis. Right-wing intellectuals have long been fascinated by genetic determinism — a belief that people’s lot in life, including their propensity to commit crime, is set at birth. Separately, some Trump-era conservatives have declared war on the Reaganite vision of America as a nation defined by its founding ideals rather than the ethno-cultural identity of its people. Trump’s musings about genes tie these notions into a coherent whole. Immigration is an existential threat to America, per Trump, because it brings in people who are genetically incapable of assimilating into the American body politic. America is a nation determined by its people — specifically, people who have “good genes.” It doesn’t take a historian to see the disturbing parallels at work here. The right’s deep belief in genetic determinants of crime American conservatism, as I’ve argued previously, sees an insistence on the idea of a fixed human nature as one of its defining traits. For some conservatives, this manifests as a notion that inequalities are natural: that the very best rise to the top due to their innate gifts, while the poor remain so due to their own failings. This is the central theme of The Bell Curve, the infamous 1994 book on the role of intelligence in America’s social structure. Though best remembered for its infamous claim that racial inequalities likely reflect the superior intelligence of whites relative to Blacks, the book’s main focus is using research to naturalize America’s class structure. The Bell Curve treats intelligence as a heritable, largely genetic trait. Modern societies, the book writes, are extremely good at identifying and elevating their most genetically gifted children, producing a “cognitive elite” at the top of the social structure and an unintelligent underclass at the bottom. The underclass’ problems are primarily caused by the stupidity of its denizens — including, the book claims, poor communities’ high crime rates. “Many people tend to think of criminals as coming from the wrong side of the tracks. They are correct, insofar as that is where people of low cognitive ability disproportionately live,” authors Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein wrote. Like many of The Bell Curve’s arguments, linking criminality to genetics has remained a popular move among right-wing intellectuals even as the modern evidence base tells a more complicated story. After Trump’s Hugh Hewitt interview, prominent right-wing commentator Richard Hanania insisted that “he’s right that crime is largely genetic.” Interestingly, Hanania dissented from Trump’s application of this idea to immigrants. Correctly pointing out that immigrants are no more prone to crime than native-born Americans, Hanania concluded that immigrants as a group don’t have the “bad genes” that incline certain people toward criminality. “Trump is lying on crime, even when he tells the truth about genetics,” Hanania concludes. But in this, he is in the right-wing minority: most share Trump’s view of immigrants as an especially criminal and essentially alien group. Indeed, this has led the modern right to take a very different view of America as a country than they have in the past — one that ties in uncomfortably well with Trump’s comments on genes and crime. America as a (biological) nation In one of his earliest political speeches, Ronald Reagan insisted that “America is less of a place than an idea.” The American idea, per Reagan, is that “deep within the heart of each one of us is something so God-like and precious that no individual or group has a right to impose his or its will upon the people.” Reagan is expressing the traditional conservative movement view of American national identity: that it is defined by our shared commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This kind of nationalism, which scholars term “creedal” or “civic” nationalism,” gives rise to a deep belief that anyone can be an American provided they are properly socialized into American ideals. As president, Reagan offered amnesty to millions of undocumented migrants and explicitly welcomed people crossing the Southern border. “Rather than making them or talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit,” as he put it in a 1980 presidential debate. Today, of course, putting up a fence is Republican orthodoxy. Gone too is Reagan’s creedal nationalism and its welcoming, idealistic spirit. Instead, the modern right is increasingly enamored by a darker vision of American nationalism: one in which the country’s identity is defined less by its founding ideals than by blood and soil. Americanness is not set by commitment to principles of liberty and equality, but rather by one’s historical and familial connections to the country. It is a more classically European way of seeing national identity, and one that’s echoed at the highest levels of the current Republican Party. “America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation,” Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance said during his speech at the Republican National Convention. While allowing that “it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers,” Vance argued that this tradition also requires strict criteria for the number and kind of newcomers who should be permitted. Immigrants may only be allowed “on our terms,” or else America will lose the sense of nationhood that he believes underpins the country’s greatness. “People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first,” Vance said. Trump made a similar, if more pointed, argument in a September campaign speech in Pennsylvania. “It takes centuries to build the unique character of each state,” the former president said. “But reckless migration policy can change it very quickly and destroy everything in its way.” In his recent comments about immigrants and crime, Trump shows how this new nationalism fits together with the longstanding conservative preoccupation with genetics. It is not just that America is a country for a specific kind of people; it’s that the people we’re letting in are biologically incapable of becoming peaceful Americans. Creedal nationalism’s faith in assimilation is not merely misplaced, but a delusional denial of genetic reality. The only responsible conservatism, on this account, is one that understands the United States as an almost physical entity: one whose survival depends on keeping its gene pool full of desirables. We’ve seen versions of this nationalism before. It does not tend to end well. This story was adapted from the On the Right newsletter. New editions drop every Wednesday. Sign up here.

(AFP): England declared their first innings at a mammoth 823-7 before tea on the fourth day of the opening test against Pakistan on Thursday for a lead of 267 runs.

Harry Brook notched up a superb 317 and Joe Root hit 262 as both batsmen made their highest test scores on the flat wicket at the Multan Cricket Stadium.

The 25-year-old Brook clubbed a four-off spinner Saim Ayub to become the sixth Englishman to score 300 or more in Test cricket, achieving the feat off 310 balls, with 28 fours and three sixes.

Andy Sandham of England was the first batsman to score a triple hundred in Test cricket, scoring 325 against the West Indies at Kingston in 1930.

Other Englishmen to score 300 are Len Hutton (364), Wally Hammond (336 not out), Graham Gooch (333 not out) and Bill Edrich (310 not out).

Brook has made rapid strides at the international level since making his debut in 2022.

He knocked three centuries against Pakistan in 2022 — in only his second series, which England won 3-0.

England declare with a lead of 267 runs 🏏

Pakistan's second innings will commence shortly.#PAKvENG | #TestAtHome pic.twitter.com/iTqboWwUZW

— Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) October 10, 2024

Brook’s senior partner Joe Root was unlucky not to reach his maiden triple century as he was trapped leg-before by spinner Agha Salman for 262 soon after lunch.

England resumed on 492-3 and looked for quick runs, which Root and Brook provided despite Pakistan’s defensive leg-side bowling, adding 166 runs in 29 overs in the session.

Root, who went past Alastair Cook’s 12,472 to become England’s highest Test run scorer on Wednesday, broke his previous best of 254 which he had also scored against Pakistan at Manchester in 2016.

Pakistan’s only chance came in the first hour when Root, on 186, failed to keep down a pull shot off pace bowler Naseem Shah but Babar Azam shelled the regulation chance at mid-wicket.

Pakistan were without frontline spinner Abrar Ahmed who suffered a fever and did not take the field on Thursday.