Williams didn’t miss a single game in the regular season and has helped spark the Lynx to a 3-0 start in the postseason. A season that began with Williams going out of her way to place all the pressure and expectations that come with it squarely on her shoulders.
“I’m going to start this off by saying, I myself in that final game, I dropped the ball, bro,” Williams said way back before the season started in just the second episode of the Courtney’s Daddy and Her podcast, which she does with her father, Don. “… I know we talked about the controversial call, but just from my seat, I’m thinking like, ‘Damn bro if I did what I’m supposed to do it doesn’t even come down to that.’”
Williams put those words into action over the offseason, through training camp, and ignited Minnesota’s historically hot start. One of the league’s true iron women — she hasn’t missed a game in over three years — Williams is accustomed to intense offseason regiments, but heading into 2025 off a heartbreaking Finals defeat and playing in Unrivaled, even Williams admitted she pushed herself to a level she hadn’t yet reached for.
“I came into the game just telling myself, ‘The work gonna show,’” Williams said after the season opener. “I’ve been in the gym, getting here early, getting shots up. This is the first time in my career I done did that. I hate to say that, but it’s the truth. It’s the first time I actually did just that extra, like when it comes to my handles, my shot, my three. So, like I said, I think the work’s just showing at this point.”
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The work showed all season to the tune of Williams’ first all-star selection since 2021, a goal Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said Williams made for herself before the season started. Her 13.2 points per game marked her highest scoring output since that 2021 season and her 271 total assists shattered Minnesota’s franchise record for assists in a single season.
Of course a number of total records fell in 2025, to be expected in the first season ever with the 44-game schedule. Williams eclipsed the previous Lynx record of 230 with seven full games to spare.
Despite a long stretch of phenomenal play in 2025, it didn’t immediately translate into a phenomenal 2025 playoffs for Williams. In two games against the Valkyries in the opening round, Williams shot 7-for-19 from the field and just 1-for-6 from three on the series. However, always the closer, it didn’t stop Williams from sinking a cold-blooded middy to put the Lynx up 75-72 in the final minute of Game 2 against the Valkyries, a game the Lynx eventually won 75-74 to cap a 17-point comeback.
“Courtney took one dribble and pulled up on the right elbow and that’s just her money shot to put us up three,” Kayla McBride said after Game 2 in San Jose. “That’s just who she is. She’s a hooper and she made a big time play.”
When Williams is going good and those midrange jumpers are finding nothing but the bottoms of the nets, playing defense against her hardly seems fair. No matter what the box score says at the end of the game, though, Williams’ confidence and mentality stays the same.
“We were on her the whole game. I said, ‘Court, I’ve got to have my big three,’” Reeve said after Minnesota’s series-clinching win in San Jose. “Playing these guys for these four games [in 12 days], I don’t know if Courtney really played that well against these guys, but I think she got herself to this place. We counted on her heavily for her energy, for her belief, and for her hyping her teammates, and she’s the type that wants that shot.
“She doesn’t care what happened. It’s why we call her ‘Dory.’ She forgets everything else that happened, so she was just going to stand there for us and be tough and try to make a shot and she did.”
Famous yet forgetful fish from the Disney-Pixar universe voiced by an even more famous daytime TV host aside, Williams’ selective short memory has helped to make her one of the most dangerous lead guards in the game. It also helped to spur her semifinals Game 1 performance against the Phoenix Mercury, which not even Dory could forget anytime soon.
Williams flirted with a playoff triple-double, netting 23 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists, and tied a single-game franchise postseason record with 5 steals. When a frustrated Lynx team went into the halftime locker room trailing physical Phoenix 47-40, Reeve needed some heavy lifting from her ‘Big Three’ again. Williams would not be waiting to the final moments of the fourth quarter to put the game away this time.
“She was part of the conversation at halftime,” Reeve said during the postgame press conference. “She’s like, ‘Can we try this? Can we do this?’ So, she kind of put her money where her mouth was and tried to change things for us and make things a little more difficult [for Phoenix]. She was our deflection winner, [tied a playoff] career-high five steals, tied a franchise record in steals. So yeah, Court was terrific.”
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Phoenix didn’t have an answer for Williams in the second half. She shot 60% from the field, dished out four assists in the fourth quarter alone, and matched Phoenix’s bigs like Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally on the boards with five second half rebounds. An area of her game where she doesn’t always get credit, but always takes pride in.
“Rebounding is all about your energy and effort,” Williams said postgame. “We understand it’s the playoffs, man, so we don’t want to lose because of 50/50 balls or rebounds. I think you take pride in it. I think we all take pride in that. You know, you can’t see your teammates out there crashing and you just standing, that ain’t no good look. I think [that’s something] we all take pride in.”
Williams’ confidence lit the fuse that ignited Minnesota’s second half explosion in Game 1. The Lynx ran away with the game late, outscoring Phoenix 42-22 in the second half. There’s still a long road for the Lynx to travel in these playoffs to climb the mountain that was denied to them so cruelly last year. No matter what happens in the games to come, whether they be Courtney Williams all-star games or ‘Dory’ games, there’s no doubt No. 10 will relish the opportunity to get the ball in her hands with the game on the line.
“I always have confidence in Courtney,” McBride said after Game 1 of the semis. “I think when she changes her pace, between her and [Natisha Hiedeman], like their pace, it’s a 40-minute game, so when we’re able to have spurts of that in transition, her getting to her pull-up, it gives us energy as a group when we get in transition and that’s her bread and butter. When she’s out there hooping and confident, it’s contagious. It becomes a lot of fun out there playing the game within the game.”