2017 WNBA Finals
Minnesota Lynx def. Los Angeles Sparks, 3-2
2017 WNBA Finals result: Minnesota Lynx def. Los Angeles Sparks, 3-2.
Result
| Team | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| Champion | Minnesota Lynx | 3-2 |
| Runner-up | Los Angeles Sparks |
Finals MVP: Sylvia Fowles
A rematch of the 2016 Finals, with Minnesota avenging its loss to claim its fourth title in seven seasons.
Games
| Game | Date | Result | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game 1 | September 24, 2017 | Los Angeles Sparks 85–84 Minnesota Lynx | Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Game 2 | September 26, 2017 | Minnesota Lynx 70–68 Los Angeles Sparks | Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Game 3 | September 29, 2017 | Los Angeles Sparks 75–64 Minnesota Lynx | Staples Center, Los Angeles, California |
| Game 4 | October 1, 2017 | Minnesota Lynx 80–69 Los Angeles Sparks | Staples Center, Los Angeles, California |
| Game 5 | October 4, 2017 | Minnesota Lynx 85–76 Los Angeles Sparks | Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
Finals context
A year after Los Angeles's controversial Game 5 win, the two Western Conference rivals met again in the Finals, and this time Sylvia Fowles was the singular difference-maker across all five games. Los Angeles again won a nail-biting Game 1, this time at home, 85-84, with two players tied at 27 points apiece while Fowles pulled down 13 rebounds in the loss. Minnesota evened the series in Game 2, winning 70-68 as Fowles collected 17 rebounds and Candace Parker led Los Angeles with 17 points in a tightly contested defensive struggle. The Sparks retook the lead in Game 3 at home, 75-64, before Minnesota leveled the series again with an 80-69 win in Game 4, this one driven by a dominant 22-point, 14-rebound effort from Fowles that established her as the singular force controlling the series' outcome. Minnesota closed out the championship in Game 5, winning 85-76, as Fowles again controlled the interior with 20 rebounds to go with her scoring; Parker managed 19 points for Los Angeles in a losing effort. Fowles was named Finals MVP after totaling 149 points and 105 rebounds across the full 2017 postseason, an extraordinarily dominant two-way stretch that made her the unquestioned best player on the floor in every game of the series, home or away. This was Minnesota's fourth championship in seven seasons (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017), a run of sustained excellence that placed the Lynx alongside Houston's earlier four-year dynasty as one of the two most dominant championship stretches in league history, and it made Minnesota, together with Los Angeles, the only franchises to have met each other in consecutive Finals to that point. For Los Angeles, the loss represented a measure of revenge denied: after winning the controversial 2016 rematch, the Sparks could not repeat, falling in a series that, unlike the previous year's officiating-marred finish, was decided cleanly by Fowles's sustained dominance rather than any single controversial play. The back-to-back Minnesota-Los Angeles Finals meetings in 2016 and 2017 remain, as of this writing, the only instance in WNBA history of the same two franchises meeting in consecutive championship rounds, a rivalry that defined the league's competitive landscape for that two-year stretch even as both franchises' championship windows would begin to close in the years that followed — Minnesota's core aging out of title contention and Los Angeles not returning to the Finals again through 2025. Teammates and coaches alike would later cite Fowles's 2017 Finals stretch as the single best two-way run of her Hall of Fame-caliber career, a fitting coda to a trade that had transformed Minnesota's championship trajectory two years earlier.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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