It was right there.

The title that would have cemented Cheryl Reeve’s status as the greatest WNBA coach to do it, given Napheesa Collier a legitimate case to be the best player in basketball, and shown that team basketball can truly rule the world was in Minnesota’s grasp Sunday in New York.

The Lynx led the Liberty by as many as 12 points late in the second quarter of the decisive Game 5 of the WNBA Finals. The lead was seven at halftime. They were up by two with five seconds to play, in need of just one last stop from their dominant defense.

And it just wasn’t meant to be.

Not enough shots fell in the second half, allowing New York to climb back into the contest. While Minnesota induced a miss from Breanna Stewart, but a foul was whistled on Alanna Smith to send the two-time League MVP to the line. Reeve challenged the whistle to no avail.

Stewart buried the two free throws. Minnesota couldn’t hit a winner at the buzzer. New York controlled the game in the extra session.

An incredible season for Minnesota, an incredible year for the WNBA and an incredible Finals for all who partook came to an end with the Lynx on the short end by the slimmest of margins.

The Lynx simply couldn’t find offense when they needed it. It was true in all three of their losses in this series, all of which went down to the wire. That’ll probably be the national takeaway from this series — it’s great what Minnesota did to get to this point, but you *need* more offensive firepower to clear the final hurdle.

And that’s unfortunate, because it doesn’t feel that way.

It does seem as though Minnesota was maybe one more impactful player from tipping the scales in its direction in a more convincing fashion. But as currently constructed, the Lynx likely win that series 50 percent of the time. Every game in this series seemingly came down to a shot here, a foul there.

The foul that sent the game to overtime likely isn’t called 50 percent of the time. The triple try Bridget Carleton put up with 15 ticks to play in overtime to try to tie the contest likely goes down on at least 40 percent of occasions. It just didn’t happen this time.

Simply put: The Lynx were good enough to win this title. They were well enough coached, they played with the proper effort and urgency. They had the best player on the floor.

Usually, that’s a winning formula. It’s why they’ll likely lament the result of Sunday’s game — and this entire series — for years to come. Because history won’t properly rate this team that did everything in near perfect unison. They had excellent game plans and executed them to a championship caliber.

It just didn’t end in championship fashion.